I have no idea. I just reposted an article saying self-pub books really aren’t selling in millions that got lots of Facebook responses. So I found myself thinking: How many am I really selling? I just finished doing taxes for the year and discover myself reasonably above the poverty line in the US (the poverty line is listed as 11,000 for a single person with no dependents apparently. That indeed would cover my food, rent, and utilities for a year, but I should add that I live in basically a writer’s garret. I’m sure many in pricey Silicon Valley who have homes and families could not manage on this.)

So I’m a working writer –as in 12-plus hours a day. With 12 books out a year, I’m certainly productive. A HARD-working writer. But I’m not paid by the hour or the word — only by royalties (ranging from 70% alleged gross to 8% net depending on publisher and type of book). And THAT depends on sales.

I’m the author of a whopping 45 books right now (yes, really, check ’em out on http://www.amazon.com/Valerie-Estelle-Frankel/e/B004KMCLQK), and part of me is wondering…so when do I hit the big time here? When do I get the wealth and recognition? Is there a point to writing another 45? (My genre is analysis on popular series like Sherlock, Doctor Who, Outlander, and Game of Thrones. Of course, they have built in fandoms already, which is awesome.) Of course, I’m discovering it’s not really about the number published, as 2-5 of them bring in far over half the sales (History, Homages and the Highlands: An Outlander Guide,the Hunger Games guide Katniss the Cattail, and sometimes a Game of Thrones guide or another tv/film related surge).

So basically, I sit here writing 12 books a year hoping ONE will catch fans’ eye (Predicting can be tough — I wrote another Outlander book and Katniss book, neither of which succeeded even half as much. Some series like Harry Potter and Marvel’s Avengers proved surprising duds. For my related books anyway.) And yes, sometimes I write whatever I feel like, with more eye to education or silly parodies and less to commercialism. Hence all my analysis on the Heroine’s Journey and vague plans for a free guide on the topic.

So today (admittedly wasting over an hour of my writing time) I decided to slow down and actually look at all these sales figures everyone sends over. What numbers am I really dealing with?

Self publishing: Here I have a lot. In fact, I have 24 on createspace/23 on Smashwords/25 on kdp/5 on ACX (most of these are the same, published in all three or maybe four mediums, but a few are exclusive.) There appear to be 27 unique titles, three of which are listed as free on Smashwords.

Kindle Direct sales (from Amazon publishing). 4552 copies sold this year. Kdp just sent me 13 tax forms from all the different countries. Goodness knows how many I’ll get next year.

Smashwords and the ebook companies they distribute to (Apple, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, Sony…): I sold 5169.9 copies (they’re counting people reading part of it, apparently) which made about $700. Total. All the sales coming in hundreds are, sadly, my free books. Two of these are “samplers” — a chapter each of already-published stuff, meant to boost sales. It only took me a few hours to put them together. No idea whether readers are then motivated to go purchase the full books.

Createspace (Amazon paperback publishing) 2616 books sold. 986 of those were my silly little Outlander guide. All right, seems the ebooks have beat the paper ones. Not a shock as my sales are online not bookstores. Publishing paperbacks is slightly more work, but I think it’s worth the effort. I like them, anyway.

ACX (amazon audio books): 5 published books (I can only give them self-pub, as otherwise publishers have the rights. Here I get 40% if I pay the recording artist upfront or 20% if I split the proceeds with them instead.) 865 sales – almost all Outlander or Game of Thrones related. Upon discovering this, I started auditioning another batch.

So that was 13,203 self-published books sold. Far far under a million, but a respectable number. Flattering in terms of people influenced, though I’m not a cat climbing into a box on YouTube. And…for them all I ended up making about 50 cents a book. (With thousands of my free and 99 cent books sold in comparison with smaller numbers of my $2.99 ebooks and 9.99 paperbacks, that isn’t the most logical calculation, but there it is).

By this point, I am thinking rude thoughts about royalty percentages. I might sit and calculate how much of Amazon’s 70% royalties I’m really getting, or consider raising prices (in fact, out of 45 books, only 3 are free and 1 is 99 cents). I could take my business elsewhere. But we all know the deal. I could sell them on my own website and keep 100% but no one would ever find them. And thus I’m forced to come back to my original premise that I’m going for fame not fortune…

Comparisons are odious as some famous person said. In fact, they’re illogical too since my traditionally published books have different content and sometimes audiences than the self-pub stuff. Certainly different math. But let me pop these up here too:

Traditional Publishers: (They mail me quarterly or biannual statements which I pull checks from then file carefully…in my desk clutter. Okay, that’s on me.) These are all small press or academic, admittedly. I have not broken into the Big Howevermanyareleft.

Zossima Press (half a year’s numbers): 3 published books. SALES: 24 paperback, 66 ebook (60 of those my Myths and Motifs in the Mortal Instruments thanks to the new TV show). Royalties: Around $1.50 per $15 book

McFarland: 4 books, 2 edited anthologies (3 more coming soon). SALES: 668 (paper and ebook in half a year). Around $1.75 per $35 book. Yep, $35. And that hurts the sales, of course.

Thought Catalog: 5 published books. SALES: By back-calculating sloppily my percentage of the royalties off the tax form…maybe 1500 copies. Around $1.50 per $5 book

Other Traditional Publishers: 4 published books that do rather badly: not enough pennies to worry about.

Traditional publishing is giving me steady numbers, while self-pub fluctuates wildly as I do page reads, free samples, free kindle five day giveaways, and other clever schemes which increase readership but not definitively sales. No shock there. For Doctor Who 50th anniversary weekend in 2013, I convinced 4500 people to download a free copy, but the Doctor Who book isn’t pulling amazing sales.

So where am I? 45 books published, with me convincing about 20,000 people this year to grab a copy of something and I’m making a living wage…but once again I’ll bring up the garret. I was a bit depressed upon looking at my tax forms, though not as much when I compared it to the previous year’s. 2013 to 2014 doubled, and 2014 to 2015 went up by a third. Things are indeed looking up…perhaps even toward a retirement plan (Plan: Do nothing and live on royalties or keep writing forever because now I’m addicted.) Is this the definition of “successful writer”? Seems so. And sure, I was hoping for more of a NY Times Bestseller profile with fabulous book promotion tours paid for by my royalties (sometimes I do this, but significant budgeting is involved). But I get to be a writer. And I’m making it work.

Well, enough of this — I really have to get back to writing now. Best wishes to everyone doing what I am, however successfully.

Do check the books out by the way — the list is up on http://vefrankel.com or http://www.amazon.com/Valerie-Estelle-Frankel/e/B004KMCLQK. Apparently I could use the paid sales.

(This traces her story through the six Mortal Instruments novels, and as such, spoils them completely during its deep analysis. Of course, fans of the show Shadowhunters would certainly find the novels delightful.)

The hero’s journey, or story of the Chosen One, is the basic format for most myths, epics, and fantasy novels. The Chosen One is a heroic child like Harry Potter or Luke Skywalker destined to fight the forces of evil. In the darkest place of all he faces his tyrant father or wicked stepmother, the darkest impulses he keeps buried within himself. He faces death and returns to life stronger than before, for death is a metaphor for crossing from child to adult.

The heroine’s most typical quest is rescue of family members, especially the little sibling that represents her child. The heroine often quests to find her best friend or little brother, in The Golden Compass, A Wrinkle in Time, and other series. Clary spends City of Bones questing for Simon the rat then kidnapped Jace, all while seeking her mother. Jace calls Clary “the girl who walked into a hotel full of vampires because her best friend was there and needed saving” (Lost Souls 522). As she rescues Simon and Jace over and over, while saving her mother and stopping her father’s slaughter of the innocent, Clary’s family sphere becomes the motivation for a much larger epic. At last, she becomes the savior of all the Shadowhunters, teaching them to bond with the Downworlders and save them as well. Her inspiring love and creativity preserve the world of magic in the ultimate triumph.

The Call to Adventure: Losing the Mother

Clary grows up in Brooklyn, living a normal childhood. When her geeky friend Simon takes her clubbing, she sees three powerful teens destroy a demon…and no one else sees anything. Her mother is so worried she tries to drag Clary off to the country. One of those teens, Jace Wayland, seeks Clary out later to tell her she has the sight and is clearly more than she seems. However, at that moment, demons invade, destroying her home and kidnapping her mother. The quest has begun.

Clary’s quest begins with her mother’s kidnapping, as Clary struggles through three books to save her. Of course, the mother is usually absent during the heroine’s story. Disney’s Beauty, Ariel, Jasmine, Mu Lan, and Pocahontas are raised by their fathers. Snow White and Cinderella have stepmothers. Fairytales, like other heroine’s journey tales, follow this pattern for a reason. The mother, who was the childhood protector, cannot continue shielding her daughter from everything or there will be no adventure. It’s time for independence. Sheldon Cashdan explains in the fairytale study The Witch Must Die:

The mother’s exit, paradoxically, is empowering in that it forces the children in the story to confront a cruel and dangerous world on their own. Lacking a mother or protector, the hero or heroine must draw on inner resources that might not have been tested were the mother still around. (42)

This is particularly true in City of Bones: Joyce has more than sheltered Clary from the hazards of the demonic world and threat of Valentine: She has hired Magnus Bane to erase all of Clary’s paranormal sightings and memories of them in order to keep her completely innocent. She seeks to blind Clary of the sight and strip her of her magical perception as well as her heritage. In this way, the mother becomes too protective, to the point of stifling the heroine and preventing her from adventuring. She has become the adversary, like Rapunzel’s stepmother, who locks her in a tower. The dark side of the loving mother is “anxious nursing and over-instructing, far beyond the needs of her charges. She may fail to affirm their own need for a sense of strength and independence, and thus delay the maturing process (Molton and Sikes 42). With Joyce’s kidnapping, Clary is released, and discovers the world of magic and evil for the first time.

The Good Mother is perfect kindness, love, and protection. As such, she has few defenses. To have the forces of wickedness kill the mother would be like having one’s inner demons devour one’s gentle, kindly side – a horrifying development for the psyche. The best way to protect or insulate the mother from such a fate is to leave her out of the story (as fairytales often do) or even have her quietly perish. “Though her absence makes the child highly vulnerable, her peaceful departure is preferable to a scenario in which she dies a violent death” (Cashdan 42). Such a thing is its own death-rebirth cycle, as the death of the mother leads the child to sink into despair and then rise strengthened, channeling the mother’s spirit into her own developing self. (Frankel, Buffy 121).

Another reason for the mother’s vanishing is the Jungian Mother Complex, which is one of the earliest and most central forces in a girl’s psyche. A baby views the mother and itself as inseparable – one person in fact. Therefore, it’s impossible that the mother should yell or punish or upset the baby, any more than its own arm might. Therefore, the baby imagines two mothers: one completely loving, selfless, and perfect, the other the “Terrible Mother” – the punisher and evil force. She is a killer of children, like the White Witch of Narnia or Wicked Witch of the West. These two figures – protective, angelic mother and vicious cruel mother – represent two conflicting voices within the self.

Valentine, though a man, is the child killer and evil parent of the first trilogy. He’s a killer of children: decades ago, he experimented on Downworlder young. He tortures and experiments on his own children as well, as Jace and Clary soon discover. Now he will kill all the marked Nephilim who haven’t pledged loyalty to him.

The protective mother is the force inside Clary that wants to keep her a child, safe and innocent yet unable to affect the world or find her destiny. The dark mother within wants to force experience and pain on her to compel her to grow. Lilith, the evil mother figure, takes this role in the second trilogy. The Inquisitor is another monstrous mother – burned by grief, she becomes a figure of ruthless, merciless, cruel order corrupted by revenge. Watching her, Clary decides who she doesn’t want to become. The capricious fairy queen and Dorothea, inhabited by a demon, represent other cruel mothers who echo the darkness inside Clary herself. Without Joyce for protection, Clary must confront all these forces and learn the harsh skills she needs to survive. Luckily, she has friends.

The World of Magic

The first gift Clary receives from the magical world is the Sensor, which she takes from Jace, her first guide. The Sensor is an appropriate tool as heroines often receive tools of perception as their talismans on magical adventures: golden compasses, magic mirrors or spectacles. Of course, Clary doesn’t use the sensor to see the magical world but to combat her enemies, and she shoves the sensor into a demon’s mouth, slaying it with the protective runes. This signals that Clary will certainly not be a passive damsel on her adventure.

In the first book, she uses her new power of perception to sweep away glamours and see the Shadowhunter world for what it really is. Perception is a significant part of her life, joined with her prophetic visions, magical sight, and lost memories of the Shadowhunter world. Further, visions and images define her: Clary keeps a sketchbook because, as she explains, she thinks in pictures, not words (Bones 204). When she pushes aside a glamour, she imagines cleaning it away like old paint under a rag of turpentine (Bones 133). “Clary is every bookish, fantasy-loving girl who grows up wielding a pencil and a sketchbook instead of mutant powers or a sword,” Sarah Cross explains in her essay on Clary (20). She may be ordinary, but she can use her abilities from our world to change everything.

Jace teaches Clary the basics of the Shadowhunter world, and his teacher Hodge offers her other facts. However, neither acts precisely as her mentor.

The child on the Chosen One’s path leaves his or her unsatisfying birth family to find a better one, a “real” one. “My parents don’t appreciate me, and they’re so boring. I must be adopted and belong somewhere more magical and special,” the child thinks. In fact, Clary’s impulses are correct, as generally happens in Chosen One stories – she has the perception of a Shadowhunter, and with it magical gifts. She’s even uniquely powerful among Shadowhunters, as she eventually discovers. She is not the daughter of Jocelyn Fray the prosaic artist and her husband Jonathan, the dead soldier. In fact, her father is the infamous and villainous Valentine, and her mother was once his revered and powerful wife. Even Clary’s “stepfather,” Luke, is a werewolf.

With her mother kidnapped and Luke rejecting her, Clary must find another guide to who she really is. This she finds in the ancient warlock Magnus Bane, her first mentor. Magnus comments: “Every teenager in the world feels like that, feels broken or out of place, different somehow, royalty mistakenly born into a family of peasants. The difference in your case is that it’s true. You are different” (Bones 231). He has been hiding Clary’s memories at her mother’s insistence. Like Gandalf and other great wizards, he provides help whenever the heroes cannot solve their own problems. Clare notes: “In writing about Clary, I am writing about the feeling that a lot of teenagers have that they are different somehow, alienated, unlike others. Only Clary actually very literally is another kind of species of human” (Enchanted Inkpot).

The mentor’s task is to give the hero or heroine a talisman to protect and strengthen her. Most male heroes receive swords, from Sting to Excalibur to Harry Potter’s dueling wand. For heroines, along with tools of perception, books are very common, appearing in Inkheart, Ella Enchanted, The Spiderwick Chronicles, The Kane Chronicles, and A Series of Unfortunate Events. Katniss of The Hunger Games has her father’s logbook as well as his bows and jacket. Clary is no exception, as Magnus offers her part of her birthright by handing her the Gramarye of runes, which will teach her to understand the hidden world. She hears a click in her head, like a key turning in a lock. After, everything seems clearer, and she’s gained stronger powers of understanding and remembrance. She soon begins writing runes, not only from the book but from heaven itself – runes only the angels know.

Women’s powers often come, not from fighting, but from crafting. Cheyenne and Micmac women cast spells of magical protection through their weaving and beading skills. In Hopi myth, Spider Woman molded people from the clay of the earth and attached a strand of her web to each of them, weaving them together. The Inuit Aakuluujjusi created the caribou from a pair of her discarded trousers and the walrus from her lumpy jacket. Ix Chel, water and moon goddess of the Maya, is a weaver, whose whirling drop spindle twirls the Universe. The Fates and the Norns likewise spun lives, with the gods themselves unable to change their wills. Goddesses are creators, but they use the magic of crafting and creating as much as birth magic.

This too is Clary’s power, as she grows from an artist with a sketchbook to a creator of powerful runes, summoned from heaven itself. She “finds a way to turn her natural talents into the tools of her survival…she draws a better world into existence and she never lets the word impossible stop her. In Clary’s hands, the stele truly is mightier than the sword” (Cross 33).

In Ashes, she puts her enormous power into an Opening rune and blasts open the door of Jace’s cell. She later creates a Fearless rune and gives it to Jace to protect him. When she creates it, she thinks of her mother and when a “soft voice” in her head challenges her, she responds, “I am Jocelyn Fray’s daughter” (Ashes 282). As she imagines her mother’s paintings, the voice fades away. On Valentine’s ship, as she tears it open with her mother’s stele, she even hears her mother’s voice inside her head. Once she’s opened herself to creative, feminine magic, Madeline Bellefleur appears and tells her how to get her mother back. Clary’s feminine side is awakening.

The Lover

Jace takes Clary to the Institute, home of the Shadowhunters. These are the warriors who fight demons, protecting mortals who don’t even know they exist. It’s filled with motifs of angels and swords, suns and roses. Angels and swords suggest defense and offense in their constant war, along with the sacred trust to defend the world from demons. The sun is a popular hero symbol, while the rose is a symbol of perfection, round like a mandala or the world.

There, Clary discovers that she is tied to this ancient birthright. She and Jace squabble, but she’s drawn to him as well, far more than to her childhood friend Simon. Jace is mysterious and powerful, magical as she is mundane, aristocratic and old-fashioned. He’s everything she’s not, and thus, incredibly captivating.

The romantic figure in the heroine’s journey represents the unconscious world of dreams and power she’s seeking in herself. By learning from him, she grows beyond her ordinary self to embrace the magic he offers. Jace is not just a Shadowhunter with the dazzling good looks and charm Clary feels she lacks. From her perspective, he’s described with his hair in a “halo of damp gold” (Bones 306) and as a “wounded prince” (Bones 297). He’s also incredibly perceptive, seeing all the nuances of Clary and Simon’s relationship when Clary often misses details.

The heroine’s love is usually a shapechanger, a frog prince or beast. This reflects the constant indecipherable moods the other person has in a romance – he seems so foreign and incomprehensible that this lover must have turned into another person entirely. Jace becomes another person when possessed in the fifth book, but there are earlier echoes: When Jace discovers Valentine’s his father, Clary is horrified by the new obedient Jace, who surrenders all of his beliefs: “This new Jace, fragile and shining in the light of his own personal miracle, was a stranger to her” (Bones 436). His belief in Valentine is described as a kind of glamour. Similarly, Jace shifts names throughout the series, from the moment he’s revealed as Jonathan Morgenstern through his struggle to find the last name that fits him.

The greenhouse he and Clary share is a magical place – it even smells like Idris. The glass roof shines like the lake in reverse, and strange, magical flowers bloom there, in an enclosed magical world. In the greenhouse, Jace gives Clary a witchlight stone for her birthday. He tells her all Shadowhunters have them and adds, “It will bring you light…even among the darkest shadows of this world and others” (Bones 313). Later it pulses in her hand “like the heartbeat of a tiny bird” and shines in her hand “as if she’d cracked a seed of darkness” (Bones 423). Birds and seeds are feminine symbols, of freedom and potential respectively. As Clary uses the stone, she claims both powers and takes her place as a Shadowhunter. The gift of light in dark places is a feminine tool of perception, like Galadriel’s phial or Ariadne’s thread, a flashlight that will let Clary find her way.

When Jace gives it to her, Clary makes an engagement joke about how girls don’t literally want a “big rock” but a diamond. This mention emphasizes how Clary is already thinking she wants an engagement ring from Jace, and thus the “big rock” he gives her takes on that meaning, binding them together. Indeed, Jace follows his gift with their first kiss. In the greenhouse, this kiss is filled with the magical plants of Idris like an Eden or a place of creation magic. He also gives her apples in the greenhouse, a sign of temptation and sin, though apples were also beloved of Aphrodite. His birthday gift of the blooming flower “dusted with pale gold pollen” blooms only for a moment, symbolizing the short-lived nature of happiness in the world. In fact, the symbolism echoes this: they have a perfect moment, a perfect kiss, and then Clary’s messy love triangle ruins things as she stumbles into Simon.

When they leave for Magnus’s party, Jace offers Clary “a long thin dagger in a leather sheath. The hilt of the dagger was set with a single red stone carved in the shape of a rose.” He tells her the knowledge of how to wield it is in her blood (Bones 214). This is a feminine dagger – containing a red stone like Isabelle’s pendant and a rose shape – but set in a masculine weapon. It’s a talisman of the Shadowhunter world and an acknowledgement that Clary can be a fighter like Jace, Alec and Isabelle. Later, it’s revealed that the kindjal dagger was Valentine’s, with his falling star emblem. Luke has its match. As Jace, then Clary take Valentine’s red dagger, they become part of the war he began with the Downworlders decades before. They are the heirs to his dark legacy as well as his weapons.

In the third book, Jace gives Clary his Morgenstern ring when he goes to face death. Though their single night together in Idris is chaste, combining it with the ring symbolizes a marriage. It’s revealed in Clockwork Prince that Shadowhunters give their ring as a betrothal gift, like an engagement ring. While Clary doesn’t know this, Jace certainly does (as do Luke and Jocelyn). She wears the ring through the second trilogy, indicating that she’s given Jace her heart and more. In folklore, a ring is given as a promise of fidelity, betrothal, or marriage. Jace tells her later “It means I trust you with my past and all the secrets that past carries” (FallenAngels 410). It’s the Morgenstern ring, symbol that Jace’s past will always be his childhood with Valentine but his future will belong to Clary.

The Animus

Simon’s mom notes that “you only need three people you can rely on in order to achieve self-actualization” (Bones 303). For Clary, these are her adoptive father Luke, best friend Simon, and boyfriend Jace. Clary notes that through her childhood she has only ever loved her mom, Luke, and Simon. In the first book, her mom is taken and Luke (temporarily) rejects her, and in the second, Simon dies and turns into a vampire. She must learn to do without all of them. She opens her heart to Jace, but discovers he’s Valentine’s son and her brother. Thus one of Clary’s greatest quests is to discover her identity without leaning on any of the men in her life.

Followers of Carl Jung’s philosophy, itself one of the roots of the hero’s journey, saw the need for women to actualize the so-called “masculine” side, the power, authority, and rational thought waiting to be developed within them. The next step is to “legitimize women’s power and authority in its own right” (Wehr 46). In Jungian psychology, the animus is another word for the heroine’s hidden masculine side. All characters represent part of the self, and Luke, Simon, Jace, and even Valentine and Sebastian all act as different types of animus, challenging Clary and forcing her to grow while offering different kinds of comfort and protection. When they are seen as aspects of the questing heroine, rather than individual characters, it becomes clear that their growth is mirroring hers in a traditional pattern. This Animus “evokes masculine traits within her: logic, rationality, intellect. Her conscious side, aware of the world around her, grows, and she can rule and comprehend the exterior world” (Frankel, Girl to Goddess 22).

As Clary matures, the animus figures in her life grow wiser and more useful, or are replaced by other, stronger, allies and enemies to challenge her. The highest level of Animus is as catalyst to wisdom. It “connects the woman with her spiritual side, making her even more receptive to her own creativity. Thus, the heroine, as well as the hero, obtains the mystical feminine energy that offers endless emotion, sympathy, nature, magic, insight, and perception,” as the first book on the heroine’s journey in myth and legend explains (Frankel, Girl to Goddess 23). These wise guides appear to Clary in the third book, as Luke, Simon, and Jace show her how to defeat evil with the power of her runes.

Simon, of course, is all passion without stopping to think. He lusts after Isabelle, snaps at Jace, and gets transformed into a rat because he wants to participate during Magnus’s party. The adventure in the vampires’ house nearly destroys them all. Still, when Simon is transformed into a rat, he acts as Clary’s perceptive animal companion, scouting exits and warning her that dawn is coming.

Several times, Clary is menaced by werewolves, which it turns out have all been sent by Luke. Though he protects her with violence and action, much as Jace does, his rejecting her early in the book has damaged their paternal relationship – he is not seen giving her much fatherly advice. In the first book, both are stuck in the early stages – Luke’s wisdom is seen more in the third book.

At the same time, Clary meets the Silent Brothers, described as being warriors of the mind rather than the body. They’re the ones who aid Clary with their advice and lead her to find her lost memories. Magnus Bane does the same, offering her the Grey Book and runes of her Shadowhunter heritage.

In the second book, Simon is transformed into a vampire because he follows his impulses and destructive jealousy. Jace likewise has become a destructive force for Clary, offering only a forbidden, confusing love. Both boys are eager to rush into battle, but less helpful when they should show restraint. Jace’s passion is his undoing – a fear demon nearly destroys him and the Fairy Queen makes him kiss Clary to upset him. However, he asks Clary for a Fearless rune, as he’s determined to master his weaknesses and become a figure of strength in the coming war. As he strengthens, Clary does likewise.

By the next book, Jace has become a model of order and law, only holding Clary’s hand as they lie together for the single night he requests. He decides to track down Sebastian and offer his life for a chance to kill him and Valentine. However, Jace is too emotional to defeat his father, when he shows up, full of sorrow at his brother’s death. Similarly, Luke’s life is all about restraint – he loves Jocelyn but can’t bear to tell her. All his life is about keeping secrets. In book three, however, Luke becomes Clary’s guide into the world of Idris. Luke takes his place on the Council as the lone voice of wisdom and Clary’s representative to the Clave, standing on the podium and dictating to them all. However, his inflexibility leads him to walk away from Jocelyn and nearly give her up. Luke as he insists on forming an alliance between Shadowhunters and Downworlders, Jace as he tracks Sebastian, and Simon who understands how to defeat Raphael, all learn wisdom in the course of the first trilogy and finally defeat their enemies.

Valentine and Sebastian are the crafty masterminds of the story and stronger adversaries than untrained Clary can defeat. Valentine, like the queen of the Seelie Court is “cool, menacing, calculating” (Ashes 256). He’s the patriarchy, determined to rule the world as the force of pitiless rigidity. While both may begin as incarnations of violence (Valentine leads the Circle in an uprising sixteen years in the past; Sebastian murders Max), they grow beyond this stage into master liars and manipulators. Valentine’s lie that Jace is his biological son haunts Clary and Jace’s relationship for most of two books. Sebastian deceives Jace so well that Jace believes they’re allies and best friends in the fifth book, just as he misleads them all when he first appears. Clary and Jace will need to learn true wisdom and perception, not to mention their own power of deception, in order to win against them.

At the climax of City of Glass, Clary risks her life portaling to the lake to warn the other Shadowhunters there’s a threat. She half-drowns, just like at the book’s beginning, only to discover Valentine has saved her. If Luke represents benevolent rationality, Valentine is the evil: inflexible obstruction and even madness. Clary reflects that he has “lost the ability to distinguish between force and cooperation, between fear and willingness, between love and torture” (Glass 482). He’s an evil Jonathan Shadowhunter, the second to summon Raziel to make a new Shadowhunter race. And he’s killed when Raziel administers the “Justice of Heaven” (Glass 495). The evil force of patriarchy and cruel order is killed by a greater force of order than himself, thanks to the wisdom and perception Clary uses for her final trick against him. In fact, only Clary can defeat him, not through force of arms but through her own cleverness. With intuition, faith, and love, all inspired by her friends, Clary finds the power to fight back silently, subtly. The patriarch, determined to seize total power considers her weak and helpless – very well, she will use that helplessness to defeat him.

The Feminine Sphere

Clary is surrounded by feminine role models, though she spends more time with masculine ones.

Toni Wolff, longtime mistress of Carl Jung, described four main feminine archetypes: Mother, Hetaera, Amazon, and Medial Woman. The Amazon is a virginal warrior-girl like Artemis or Katniss. This is Isabelle’s role in the story. (Though Isabelle, like Artemis, has occasional relationships, she remains single and fiercely independent). Jocelyn of course is the nurturing, kindly and absent mother who can no longer shelter Clary.

to her consort. She is his lover or soulmate, inspiration or goddess figure, or on the dark side, femme fatale. She thinks in terms of her companion, just as the mother relates first to her child. Clary has few examples of this, but as she watches Jocelyn examine her past with Valentine and her future with Luke, she decides what she wants with Jace.

The Medial Woman is the most enigmatic of these figures. She is the seer, sage, prophetess, witch, or sorceress. “She is both a puzzle to herself and a mystery to those she encounters. In contrast to the other types, her primary relationship is to the other, the unknown, to God or gods” (Molton and Sikes 225). Thus, her shadow or negative side is in service to the demons. Madame Dorothea, who doesn’t realize a demon has taken her over, is the perfect embodiment of this archetype. Clary seeks out Madame Dorothea for guidance, but Dorothea is a false guide. She is a conduit between the real world and that of dreams and the deep unconscious – it’s no accident that Clary takes the feminine cup from her house.

“A woman’s self-nurture includes an invitation for her to explore and integrate all four of the types into her awareness and understanding, one by one, over time” (Molton and Sikes 295). If she integrates all four types into her personality, she can use them as tools at need. Thus the Divine Child Clary is not clearly any of these types, but she tries each on at various moments as she decides who she wants to become. Mystic Clary receives visions from angels and scribes runes, Mother Clary offers to take Max shopping and cradles Simon as he lies dying. She is Hetaera Clary around Jace and Amazon Clary around the demons. The Shadow, in Jung’s psychology, is “aspects of oneself which are considered by the ego to be undesirable or not useful and are therefore relegated to the dark” (Estés 85). However, the heroine will need to explore these aspects to understand the emotions she refuses to confront in herself.

Clary lacks a wise female mentor or a romantic role model who’s happily in love – Isabelle the Amazon and Jocelyn the Good Mother are only half the archetypes. However, by looking deep within, and listening to the wisdom of Jace, Magnus, Simon, and Luke, Clary manages to become a lover and mystic by the end of the trilogy, saving Jace and the world together with heart and spirit combined. By the third book, and especially the second trilogy, she becomes a nurturer for Simon, a lover for Jace, an amazon warrior who can battle Sebastian, and a seer who dreams with the angels.

The Double

The Double is a same-sex friend or companion. Like Frodo and Sam or Don Quixote and Sancho, this is a partner with opposite knowledge and abilities. This double can unlock the creative process and inspire the hero to great heights.

The negative side of the partner is the competitor. Jessamine and Tessa or Clary and Isabelle spend time as both friends and enemies. When they are on the same team, their contrasting skills and outlooks prove an invaluable partnership. When they argue, the Double’s cruelty can spur the heroine to make daring choices and grow from the experience. “The competitor presents a challenge to overcome and thus provides an image of oneself to grow into” (M. Walker 51).

Isabelle is the story’s Amazon, for whom “relationship with a man is through a role of being competitor or that of a comrade and rival who makes no personal demands” (Molton and Sikes 208). Isabelle has only platonic relationships with the boys of the story until the final pages of the third book, when she grows closer to Simon. She is a model for Clary of strength and independence but also their dark side: the Shadow Amazon may spend all her time trying to prove her toughness and superiority but is in fact insecure and displays anger and over-competitiveness. “Socially she can become a social hyena, and at home a jealous fury. She takes little time for a social life. Her relationships are mostly impersonal” (Molton and Sikes 189).

Isabelle goes to Magnus’s party dressed all in silver “like a moon goddess” (Bones 208). To Clary, she’s all Clary isn’t – she’s taller and dresses older and much cooler and more elegantly. Isabelle uses her beauty “like a whip,” while Clary doesn’t know she’s beautiful (Bones 324). Isabelle always makes Clary feel scruffy – wearing Isabelle’s clothes, at the Institute, Clary feels her shortness and lack of cleavage more than ever. In Lost Souls, Clary wishes she were like Isabelle, “so aware of your own feminine power you could wield it as a weapon” (244). “The double often appears with an aura of beauty, youth, and perfection or near-perfection” (M. Walker 49). She’s all the heroine aspires to be, and thus a spur for growth and change.

Isabelle’s room is black with gold and hot pink. Inside, the tables are covered in makeup bottles, vanilla perfume, glitter, and sequins. Filled with beautiful clothes and weapons, it reflects Isabelle – and all Clary isn’t. Her room is orange, a cheerful, androgynous color. Clary usually wears braids, jeans, and plain shirts, while Isabelle wears sexy, dangerous black, white, red, and silver – goddess colors. Above it all shines her red pendent, like a fierce heart.

The ruby at Isabelle’s throat pulses “like the beat of a distant heart” and warns her of danger (Fallen Angels 342). If the heroine has talismans of perception that make her stronger, Isabelle has already completed that journey. When bestowing the necklace on Isabelle’s ancestress, Will says, “It will help keep you safe which is how I want you, and help you be a warrior, which is what you want” (Clockwork Princess 252). When her mother or grandmother passed it on, she offered it to Isabelle with similar sentiments. Its inscription reads, “True love cannot die,” offering another stage for both Isabelle and Clary to reach in time.

However, as Clary puts on Isabelle’s borrowed dress, she takes steps toward becoming a Shadowhunter, dark, powerful, and dangerous. Isabelle dresses Clary in a black spaghetti strap dress with fishnets and boots so that Clary looks “fairly badass” (Bones 210). She even offers Clary a thigh sheath. Isabelle puts Clary’s hair up in an elegant swirl, and Clary finds herself remembering her romantic dream of dancing with Jace and Simon at an Idris ball. Under Isabelle’s ministrations, Clary is suddenly grown up and alluring.

Feminine Magic

In the first book, she follows receiving Magnus’s book with questing for and finding her mother’s Mortal Cup. “Raziel’s Cup, in which he mixed the blood of the angels and the blood of men and gave of this mixture to a man to drink and created the first Shadowhunter” is a grail of sorts (Bones 346). As Cassandra Clare comments:

The Cup draws from all sorts of Cup legends – the Grail legend, for one, though it’s not meant to be the Grail. It also draws from the imagery of the Tarot card class of Cups. The Cup is also a symbol of faith, and Shadowhunters are all about faith. (“Interview: Cassandra Clare”)

Grail symbolism goes back for millennia: The top of the chalice is open to spiritual matters, the bottom is grounded in earth (Cirlot 43).

This cup has been hidden in Clary’s mother’s craft, her painted tarot cards. “Jocelyn clearly wanted only one person to be able to find the Cup, and that is Clary, and Clary alone” (Bones 329). The grail symbolizes the quest and is a source of illumination. Losing the grail is like losing one’s inner ties (Cirlot 121). The cup is also a feminine symbol – it’s no accident that Clary is the one to draw it from the Tarot deck where her mother hid it. The feminine is generally hidden in stories: Arthur has Excalibur but must quest across the world for the grail’s elusive power.

The cup, as a universal symbol of the mother-element, water, reflects the womb-vessel, and later, the chalice of resurrection, “the female-symbolic bowl of life-giving blood.” As for its feminine characteristics, the Grail dispenses both material food and spiritual solace. It preserves youth and maintains life. It heals knights wounded in battle. It radiates light and a sweet fragrance; it rejoices the troubled heart. In all these ways it is a source of solace and spirituality, elevating man above the animal and toward the divine. It is the guiding symbol, the anima, for which man quests. (Frankel, Girl to Goddess 58).

In this series, the cup gives birth to Shadowhunters, though Sebastian and Lilith seek to corrupt it and create a race of demonic Shadowhunters through evil birth magic in the second trilogy.

However, Clary must discover that her mother had the Cup’s power all along, as has Clary – it’s been waiting in her house all this time, like the ruby slippers on Dorothy’s feet, waiting for the heroine to call it forth. “Men may quest for the grail, but each woman already bears the feminine deep within, and only needs evoke it” (Frankel, Girl to Goddess 58). Drawing it from the tarot deck indicates Clary is claiming her feminine strength.

The Ace of Cups or “love card” has a rayed sun. Madame Dorothea warns her that love can be terrible and powerful. The suns and rubies decorating the golden cup represent the heroic principle – the heir inheriting the throne. As Clary claims the card, she is taking on her role as Shadowhunter and Chosen One. The sun represents courage, passion, and creative energy, all traits Clary is known for. In tarot, on the positive side, it means glory, spirituality, and illumination, all gifts Clary needs to beat Valentine. On the negative side it is vanity and unrealistic idealism (Cirlot 317-320). These latter traits show up as the teens are overconfident when fighting the demon in Dorothea and Alec is severely wounded.

Facing Death

In the first book, Clary follows Jace to Valentine’s stronghold on Roosevelt Island. This ancient Shadowhunter fortress bears the Circle’s symbol on the floors – it is Valentine’s stronghold. In many tales, the heroine ventures from her place of power, like the Little Mermaid’s magical ocean, into the patriarchal castle where she is powerless. As Clary explores, the very building oppresses her. The weapons won’t pull free of the walls, and the rooms are thick with dark shadows and the screams of the forsaken. Worst of all, her mother is chained to a bed helpless and unconscious.

This withdrawal and magical sleep is a time for the woman to adjust to new roles and new situations. “Women and artists know instinctively that there are times in life where we must be unreachable, times when we must insist that those around us, especially those nearest and dearest, remain at a distance if anything significant is to develop inside us,” explains Joan Gould, author of the fairytale analysis Spinning Straw into Gold. (98).

Clary falls asleep or faints several significant times in the series, the first being when she is poisoned and awakes three days later in the Institute. Literally overnight, she has become a Shadowhunter. Metaphorically, she needs time to absorb this change, this entry into a new world, thus the sleep state. Sleeping Beauty and Snow White have similar withdrawals during their own stories. Jocelyn enters the coma herself as a defense mechanism. She awakens to find her own world has changed – Clary is a Shadowhunter and Jocelyn must return to Idris and face the path she thought she’d left forever.

Spiritual gifts are just as important as the physical. Clary’s greatest runes are created in moments of love and classically feminine emotion. At the second book’s climax, the world falls away and she pours all her power, love, and hope, and rage into an Opening rune. Her pure love and desperation tear apart the patriarchal stronghold of Valentine’s ship with all his demons in it. They fall into the purifying feminine ocean, with magical Nixies waiting to save them all (as Jace has called the feminine powers of the cavalry to the rescue). As she falls into the dark ocean in a near-death, she sees a nixie come for her and imagines it is her mother, source of protective feminine power. “Water evokes the deep feminine, interconnectivity and flexibility. It offers a chance to let go, to let intuition and nature buoy the woman forward” (Frankel, Girl to Goddess 63). Before the Council in the third book, Clary feels intimidated. However, she gazes out at Simon and thinks of Jace. Knowing their love and faith in her, she draws a new rune. She creates an illusion of everyone’s loved one – she feels love so she can create it in turn.

Clary’s journey to Jace’s childhood home is a different kind of descent. It is another of Valentine’s strongholds, but this one is hidden underground, the place of initiation. Further, the angel waiting below is the source of Clary’s feminine magic – dreams, prophetic visions, and runes. This place stands on the threshold, blending science and magic, Valentine’s cruel experiments with the inexplicable miracle of a true angel. Clary and Jace together free the angel and decipher its message, returning to the world above with a new understanding.

At the climax of the third book, Clary risks her life to save Jace and stop Valentine. However, Valentine is too powerful for her: Clary is incapacitated and robbed of her voice when Jace arrives, confronts Valentine, and dies. The silenced heroine is common in myths and fairytales, from the story of Echo to The Six Swans and more:

Fairytales show silent, virtuous maids like Cinderella and the little mermaid, who never complain of their vicious treatment, and even more silent, virtuous but dead mothers. Contrasted with this are the vocal witches and stepmothers giving orders. (Frankel, From Girl to Goddess 22)

This theme is found throughout the world, from sleeping princesses to gagged and enchanted questing girls. Disturbingly, this best reflects the real status of women through history: illiterate and confined to cleaning and childbearing. Valentine binds and silences his daughter, then dismisses her as a helpless sacrifice who can do nothing to stop him. The rune Clary carves is tiny, unlike the great binding rune or Mark of Cain. At the height of Valentine’s master plan, he is defeated by his neglected, bound, ignored daughter, who scribbles a single word. This too is the heroine’s journey, often the path of silently knitting coats of nettles or keeping faith for seven years to rescue loved ones and bring an end to evil.

Clary comes to understand Valentine, and even sympathizes a bit with the man who honestly mourns Jace as she does. By watching him, Clary understands how to defeat him with his own runes when he won’t look for a quiet act of desperation. Valentine’s misogyny has made him dismiss her as a threat, just as he once dismissed a pregnant, despairing Jocelyn. This narrow thinking proves his downfall. Further, she makes a wiser choice than he does when Raziel offers her a boon: Valentine chose death, she chooses life.

Like Clary’s other great moments, this one springs from emotion. Jace’s death gives her the clue she needs, for, as she reflects, “there was so much power in a name (Glass 489). As with the rune she draws for the Council, she thinks of Jace and realizes he’d be disappointed if she stopped fighting. When the Angel Raziel offers her anything in the world, Clary once more relies on love and asks for the only person she truly wants: Jace. Her love brings him back to life in one of the heroine’s classic quests. She’s succeeding with the “deep magic” of Narnia or the brave desperation of Katniss and her berries – the older, quieter wisdom the powerful tyrant has discounted.

She ends the trilogy strong enough in herself to face down the all-powerful matriarch, the fairy queen, and refuse her offer of a favor. Further, Simon points out Clary’s strong enough to defend herself with a variety of weapons. By defeating Valentine the Patriarch, Clary can usher in a better world with peace between Downworlders and Shadowhunters. With the lessons she’s learned, she demands that her mother marry Luke and treasure the love in her life, just as Clary has brought Jace back from the dead.

Lilith Rises

Changed by her adventure, the heroine realizes that her father is not the omnipotent god in whom she had once completely believed. She has her own power now and her own success. In this moment, the heroine realizes that she need not depend on her father, or men at all, to rescue and protect her. She is the heroine, equally as valid as the hero.

Often, this encounter takes place in the middle of the epic quest, before descending into the final conflict with the witch. Though a resting place, it is also a revelation. By returning home, the heroine can see how far she has evolved. Beauty visits her family and chooses between magic and the mundane. Dorothy returns to the Wizard but discovers him a humbug. Cinderella returns from the magical world of the ball. Now she must cater to her stepsisters and pretend that she is the same person. Her night of glamour is over. Yet, she finds that the status quo no longer fits her, if indeed, it ever did. She is a different person more suited to the prince’s world than her own. (Frankel, Girl to Goddess 104).

The two trilogies fit together as the two halves of Clary’s heroine’s journey – on the first, she faces the patriarch, Valentine. Her second, deadlier adversary will be the Dark Mother, Lilith. The first trilogy is about beating Valentine and the patriarchal Council, both too rigid with their desire for order. The second trilogy is more concerned with the spirituality of Clary’s power as she quests to become lover and mystic, the one who can stand by Jace through the darkest of evils and harness the angels’ power.

However, her first adventure has taught her a great deal. She begins the second trilogy having fully integrated into Jace’s world of the supernatural. She trains in fighting and is fully committed to her new boyfriend. Isabelle and Jocelyn have integrated the lover archetype into themselves, reflecting Clary’s happiness with Jace. Magnus and Alec are equally blissful. All is well in the Shadowhunters’ world.

The second series reflects a shift from male power to female: Robert Lightwood abandons his family. Magnus and Alec quarrel constantly, and Magnus finally leaves the cause. The Council drifts, uncertain how to rule in this new world. Luke is wounded critically, as Jocelyn was in the previous trilogy. Simon loses his godlike power. Jace is possessed and kidnapped.

By contrast, Isabelle is gaining confidence. When Clary loses Jace, Isabelle, her strong female side, grows even stronger and becomes “her staunchest defender” (Lost Souls 12). Isabelle marches her protectively past the glaring Shadowhunters and accompanies her to bargain with the treacherous fairy queen. This time, Clary must confront her without Jace’s clever tongue. When Jace is taken from her, Clary turns all her energy toward getting him back. However, with Isabelle and the fairy queen as allies, she’s coming from a stronger position, with her feminine energies marshaled. Clary also begins wearing the fairy queen’s silver bell rather than Jace’s ring around her neck. She’s seeking feminine power without her boyfriend. Camille replaces the weaker Raphael as another selfish yet strong female, glowing with power. Maia takes a larger role. Clary herself has been trained in battling demons, and she becomes strong enough for a physical battle with Sebastian.

However, Clary struggles with her rune powers because she hasn’t yet explored her dark side, only the lighter side of her nature that mastered physical power over Valentine’s ship, Valentine’s summoning circle, and the hierarchical Clave. Clary has not delved into the mystical feminine side of her abilities. In City of Fallen Angels, she finally tries. However, her first foray into the dark side terrifies her: She revives a Shadowhunter from the dead and is horrified at his agony. Luke warns her that she needs to train and not only use her power for big moments: He comments, “Think of Magnus: His power is a part of him. You seem to think of yours as separate from you. Something that happens to you. It’s not. It’s a tool you need to learn to use” (Fallen Angels 137).

This is good advice modern psychologists would agree with: Clarissa Pinkola Estés, author of Women Who Run with the Wolves explains, “We find that by opening the door to the shadow realm a little, and letting out various elements a few at a time, relating to them, finding use for them, negotiating, we can reduce being surprised by shadow sneak attacks and unexpected explosions” (236). The Shadow is all one’s buried or rejected impulses – rage, selfishness, misbehavior. However, a Shadow is also a force of strength and motivator for growth – it has positive qualities to teach the too polite, too-repressed Chosen One. But Clary has only begun exploring this side of herself. To understand her dark side, Clary will need to face the Dark Mother.

Lilith is the powerful mother to the reborn Jonathan, and to the race of dark Shadowhunters that follow. As she shows in City of Fallen Angels, she will do anything, even kill, to protect her unnatural child. This is a lesson that Clary, future mother to Shadowhunter children, must learn. Her mother cannot teach her the lesson. Estés says that to defend her unnatural child, the mother needs fierce qualities such as fearlessness, vehemence, and fearsomeness (176). Jocelyn, however loving, backed away from raising a Shadowhunter child and instead robbed Clary of her powers, forcing her to grow up “normal” in the mundane world. To learn how to fight and kill to protect her dangerous, powerful future child, to keep her child safe to the exclusion of everything, Clary must learn from Lilith.

She is the strong shadow of femininity, all Clary isn’t. She tells Jace: “I am not a man. I have no male pride for you to trick me with, and I am not interested in single combat. That is merely a weakness of your sex, not mine. I am a woman. I will use any weapon and all weapons to get what I want” (Fallen Angels 371). Ironically, this is the lesson Jace has tried to teach Clary in combat: to be ruthless, pitiless, clever and determined.

Lilith plots to resurrect Sebastian, keeping him in a glass coffin like Snow White’s. She adds, “As Jonathan Shadowhunter led the first Nephilim, so shall this Jonathan lead the new race that I intend to create” (Fallen Angels 331). Clary may think she has nothing in common with this dark mother, but Lilith reveals the truth: Clary’s reviving Jace has let Lilith revive Sebastian: “Thinking you could be the only people in the world who could have their dead loved one back, and that there would be no consequences. That is what you thought, isn’t it, both of you? Fools” (FallenAngels 385). Clary and Jace have been living in a world in which their love only affects them, but it matters to their families, as the next book will reveal. Clary has played with the power of death, not merely life, and she didn’t understand the gravity of the consequences. Now she is learning them, directly from the dark goddess of the series. Being able to speak with the dead and conjure angels is useless until she can harness her power and understand how to control it.

Clary is dragged into Lilith’s temple in City of Fallen Angels. The words on her altar reference Proverbs from the Bible, describing the woman who forsakes God, as Lilith has:

For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead. None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life. (Proverbs 2:18-19)

Inside, all is the dark reversal of the Shadowhunters’ blessed Institute: Clary reads an evil book of runes and is revolted. She also takes an athame, a sacrificial knife used to summon demons as it’s described, and marks it into a Shadowhunter blade, turning Lilith’s dark magic into a source of light.

Lilith’s temple is a place of terror, with dead and dying perversions of childbirth all around. This stronghold is the dark side of love: obsession, torture, singlemindedness. However, facing this is a part of growing up: Clary, Isabelle, and Maia all must accept that there’s no ideal, perfect love – that their boyfriends can sin and even do unforgiveable acts. All three enter Lilith’s temple to save their loved ones and discover that they can indeed forgive their men. The innermost cave is a place of total truth with all illusions burned away. By accepting this lesson, all these couples can grow and find a real love, accepting the other person’s all-too-human flaws. Clary uses trickery and love once more to write on Jace with his father’s dagger and Lilith’s rune on his heart. Her rune power and force of love save her, along with cleverness – Simon, Clary’s creation and appointed warrior, also uses all three to destroy Lilith.

Jace as Destroyer

In the new trilogy, Jace and Clary are finally allowed to be together. In fact, he becomes her occasional weapons tutor and Shadowhunter partner as well as boyfriend. Clary decides that they are soulmates, eternally, perfectly in love. She gives up her mundane world for his, and might even have given up her mother if the laws weren’t in chaos. They spend training sessions making out, and Clary neglects her friends to stare moonily at her boyfriend. He’s taking over her entire world, so much that the old her is in danger of vanishing. The journey involves finding balance between the daylight world and the magical world that represents the subconscious. However, Clary is giving up on all aspects of her former life to spend her days with Shadowhunters. She’s acting like Twilight’s Bella Swan, who offers to give up parents, Jacob’s friendship, college, children, her soul, and her sanity just to be with Edward.

Jocelyn points out that the universe has thrown so many obstacles at their love, from the brother-sister relationship to Jace’s possession that “the two of you are not meant to be together” (Lost Souls 122). The strong feminine voice in Clary’s life, missing from the first trilogy, has returned, and is trying to protect Clary from being completely subsumed in the new relationship. “You love him so much. It scares me,” she worries, voicing the defensive fears inside Clary herself (Fallen Angels 288). Clary hasn’t yet found her identity – she’s hiding from her rune powers and hasn’t decided who she wants to be, aside from Jace’s perfect girlfriend and Shadowhunter partner. As such, the new her could easily become lost.

“There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for Jace,” Clary insists (Lost Souls 142). Simon must point out how destructive this philosophy is: He would do almost anything for Clary. But he wouldn’t kill innocents or destroy the world. Evil Jace might ask her to do all that and more. In fact, that is what Jace asks, and Clary must make her choice. Describing Jace’s possession, the author adds:

Jace is in this place where he needs to be saved. But he’s not really Jace anymore. So the question is, how much would you do for love? And what if you have to do an immoral thing for a moral reason because you love someone so much? At what point do you have to stop trying to save this person because it’s bad for the world in general, even if you love them very much. That’s the central tension that kind of rips up the characters in Lost Souls. The group that wants to save him more than anything else, and the group that is willing to sacrifice him for the greater good. (Brissey, “Cassandra Clare talks ‘Clockwork Prince’”)

“When a woman is attempting to avoid the facts of her own devastations, her night dreams will shout warnings to her” such as “flee,” or even “go for the kill,” explains Estés (54).

Clary struggles to commit to Jace completely. Their brother-sister barrier is gone. However, when she considers making love with Jace, he takes the Herondale knife and stabs her with it. These are Jace’s nightmares, but they are directed by the dark feminine presence of the story. If all characters are aspects of Clary, Lilith is the cruel Shadow but also Clary’s fierceness, determined to stop Jace from taking her over. The dreams she sends reveal Jace as a killer who could tear Clary to pieces. In the next book, his predatory side is even more pronounced, as he tries to make her drink a demon’s blood “for her own good.” Evil Jace is the Predator without disguise or apology.

Later, he asks to put a binding rune on her, but it ends up being a rune of coercion: ‘Something darker that spoke of control and submission, of loss and darkness” (Fallen Angels 305). All this is the dark side of love, and it frightens her. Clary swoons like Sleeping Beauty confronted with the spindle’s prick (a metaphor for sex, as the rune of total commitment is). The powerful feminine inside Clary is raging against her giving up her identity completely. Once again, Jace is revealed as the Predator, his rune selfish and coercive. With Lilith’s mark on him, Jace becomes a stranger. “Like a recording of him, she thought, all the tones and patterns of his voice there, but the life that animated it gone” (FallenAngels 336). “Now the naive self has knowledge about a killing force loose within the psyche,” Estés explains (55).

Clearly, Simon was right to warn her that she needs to reprioritize. “Today, it is generally understood that the romantic and spiritual man-god – the male ideal worthy of a woman’s self-sacrifice and worship, for whom she is expected to set aside herself and her life – simply does not exist” (Pearson and Pope 35). This is the lesson Clary must learn – that overpowering love is wonderful, but she cannot sacrifice the world for Jace. Only if she sees him as an equal partner, not her golden angel, can they have a real relationship.

Blurred Morality

In City of Lost Souls, Clary comes to realize the world isn’t as black and white as she’d envisioned. With Jace in danger, she would break any rule, betray any loyalty to get him back.

First, she bargains with the fairy queen and steals magic rings from the Institute. After, she keeps the rings for herself. In Venice she happily steals a gondola with Jace and tries fairy drugs. This is Clary dipping into her Shadow, just to try it out. It’s more delightful than she’d expected to ignore her mother’s chiding and her own knowledge of consequences.

Jace, flirting with her, urges her to abandon all control. She sees that Jace has given up his principles and only lives for the moment now – and is happier without ethics. This makes her question her own rules. Together they kill a demon and steal its possessions, and for the first time she feels the rush and joy of fighting. The silvery adamas they had bargained for is darkened as she is, its pure angelic silver marred by her blood. She puts on the dress Sebastian brings her – black lace and beads. In it, her eyes are smudged with “dark shadow” and she has “a certain toughness” (Lost Souls 300). She remembers wearing Isabelle’s dress in book one and taking her first steps into the demon world as she enters an even darker realm this time.

Jace guides her into the Bone Chandelier and references the quote “Easy is the decent into hell.” There, a black-winged angel drips strings of garnets like blood. The gruesome bone chandelier dominates, sprinkling the room with silvery fairy drugs. Under its light, Clary gives in to temptation. She makes out with Jace and drinks the drugs, discarding her good girl role.

When Clary turns into her own evil twin, dressing provocatively and slipping into a demon party (as she did in City of Bones), she’s allowing her Shadow to take over – all the impulses she’s always buried, all the sexy, provocative, bad girl impulses she never allows to surface. With the catalyst of various Shadows – Sebastian and Isabelle, who both offer her sexy dresses, Clary feels her unacknowledged, unexplored bad girl side pushing through. And she revels in it. Campbell describes facing this Shadow as “destruction of the world that we have built and in which we live, and of ourselves within it; but then a wonderful reconstruction, of the bolder, cleaner, more spacious, and fully human life” (8). Allowing the Shadow out, learning its lessons and acknowledging its place in the day to day world is the process of being human.

In Lost Souls, Jace must contend with his Shadow of evil Jace: Clary must contend with Sebastian. He tells her that he needs Jace “But in his heart he’s not like me. You are” (Lost Souls 358). Sebastian even holds up hands like Jocelyn’s and talks about painting. In fact, he represents her buried side: all the seething emotions, power, and desire to lash out people keep hidden under their skins. Sebastian tells her unpleasant truths, pointing out that Jocelyn isn’t as wonderful as Clary always thought: She betrayed her husband, lied for months, and arranged the slaughter of all their friends. “She stole your memories. Have you forgiven her?” he adds, like the angry voice deep inside Clary (Lost Souls 358). He points out Clary too has the potential for evil – she killed their father and doesn’t mourn what she’s done.

As she tries on his lifestyle like the black dress, she finds herself seeing Sebastian’s side, acting on the dark voice that whispers within her. Under the drugs’ influence, she finds herself liking Sebastian. She’s become her own evil twin there in the club, as she thinks of him as her brother and can’t recall why she should fear him. Side by side, they gaze into a pool, and Sebastian tells her how much they share. “You have a dark heart in you, Valentine’s daughter…You just won’t admit it” (Lost Souls 316).

In one of her posted deleted scenes, Clare shows Sebastian’s thought process.

Clarissa was Father’s real daughter too, and who knew what strange brew the combination of Father’s blood and Heaven’s power had formed to run through Clarissa’s veins? She might not be very different from himself.
…

Jonathan dreamed of a girl standing in the sea with hair like scarlet smoke coiling over her shoulders, winding and unwinding in the untameable wind. Everything was stormy darkness, and in the raging sea were pieces of wreckage that had once been a boat and bodies floating facedown. She looked down on them with cool green eyes and was not afraid.

Clarissa had done that – wreaked destruction like he would have. In the dream, he was proud of her. His little sister. (“City of Glass: A Dark Transformation.”)

He shares her prophetic dreams and also her longing for someone like him, someone who will understand his unique powers. On some level, he respects her and cares for her as Valentine does not.

Talking with Sebastian, Clary comes to realize he isn’t all evil either – he genuinely likes her and Jace, and wants them to be a family. He tells her, “You can’t go back. You’ve already thrown your lot in with Jace. You might as well do it wholeheartedly” (Lost Souls 257). Fighting beside him, she discovers the high of battle, and it makes her feel invincible. “Amazing that it had taken fighting alongside Sebastian of all people to flip the switch inside her that seemed to turn her Shadowhunter instincts on” (Lost Souls 298). By abandoning her good self, she’s embraced the fighter side of her heritage. The gold ring of responsibility, link to her mission and family back home, is her only tether.

After she parties all night, tries fairy drugs, and nearly gives in to Jace, her ring vanishes. Like Bluebeard’s wife, she’s done the forbidden and so been stained with its consequences: she can no longer reach her friends. Of course, cut off from them, she must choose for herself and find a way to save the world without outside help.

By trying to beat Sebastian, Clary must become him, resorting to dirty tricks she would never use under ordinary circumstances. However, pretending to be their ally is bringing her closer to their side. “You’re everything like me,” he hisses. “You infiltrated us. You faked friendship, faked caring” (Lost Souls 446). In the end, Clary realizes she’s come to understand Sebastian, an invaluable skill for their next encounter.

Though she is more comfortable with her dark side, Clary is still a warrior of the light, In the battle, Simon gives her the sword “and in that moment, she was no longer Clary, his friend since childhood, but a Shadowhunter, an avenging angel who belonged with that sword in her hand” (Lost Souls 485-486). The sword, named Glorious, was once given by the Archangel Michael to lead God’s chosen in battle. Clary accepts the sword to do just that.

Clary stabs Jace and Sebastian, and far off, the evil side of herself that has been allowed to whisper to her, screams in agony. It’s over. Clary has another near death as she crumples, feeling like she’s burning alive alongside Jace.

Looking at Jace, Clary realizes his evil Jace persona doesn’t love her, only an idealized picture of her. For fairytale heroines, the test is often to withstand pity – if the heroine turns from the path at every cry for help, she will never reach her goal. Clary’s task is to destroy the Predator taking over her life and ignore the maternal impulse that urges her to spare her lover pain. For Evil Jace to be broken apart and Good Jace to return, Clary must be ruthless. She summons the cruel, expedient side she’s learned from Sebastian, the side that would sacrifice a loved one to win a larger goal. With it, Clary stabs Jace with Glorious, burning away the false images and blurry glass through which each has been seeing the other.

Jace is broken down with the sword and burned by heavenly fire until the evil shatters. After he returns to life, he and Clary begin a more balanced relationship. They discuss their priorities and agree to trust each other in the future. There will be further trials as Clary explores her darker nature and faces death, together with the world’s end, one last time, but she and Jace will approach the quest from a more honest and united place.

City of Heavenly Fire

Once more, the women grow ascendant as Tessa and Emma’s stories blend with the main narrative. Maia takes over Luke’s pack and controlled, expedient Rafael and maddened Maureen are replaces by a cleverer vampire, Lily. By book’s end, Meliorn is no longer the fairies representative, and a woman has taken his place. Jia, leader of the Shadowhunters, is cold but fair. Tessa fills Idris with weapons from the Spiral Labyrinth that can block the fairies’ advances, swaddling the city in her protection. All the Shadowhunters team up to defend it, even the children within the Citadel. The Iron Sisters emerge from their Citadel to defend Jace because of the heavenly fire within him and chase off Sebastian himself.

Further, their battle against Sebastian and the demon realm cannot be won by force of arms. Even Jace’s heavenly fire cannot best the other in a straightforward attack, and Jace, impulse and passion, lacks the knowledge of how to wield it. In the demonic realm of Edom, Sebastian taunts him with an image of guilt and Jace lashes out, almost destroying himself with the fire. It is Clary who scrawls protective runes on herself and walks directly into the flames, guiding his fire safely into her own sword, which only lights up at its true bearer, herself.

Along with the fairy rings and her drawing magic, Clary gains a sword at last, generally a masculine icon. Sword seller Diana Wrayburn (destined to be Emma’s trainer in the next series) offers her one of gold and obsidian with a blade of black silver. It’s a match to Sebastian’s light-bringer sword Phaesphoros. Hers is Heosphoros, dawn-bringer. The dawn of course symbolizes hope along with youth and newness—an end to the darkness that’s lingered for so long. Diana tells her, “If you flinch from it, you give it power over you…Take it, and cut your brother’s throat with it, and take back the honor of your blood” (Heavenly Fire 147).

Later, Clary tells her mother, “I need to find a way to be partly a Morganstern and to have that be all right, not to pretend that I’m someone else” (Heavenly Fire 219). She’s seeking identity and owning the darkness within her. Sebastian comes to her and emphasizes that demons are only the flip side of angels – that both are chosen for greatness and that Clary has the capacity for both within her.

When Luke, her mother, Magnus, and Raphael are taken, she and her best friends – Jace, Simon, Alec, and Isabelle, travel to Edom to save them. It’s a dark reflection of Idris – the geography is the same, but it was taken over by demons long ago. There, Clary and Jace find romance by a lake, protected all around with silvery Shadowhunter runes – a moment of beauty and consummation before the battle to come.

In Sebastian’s stronghold, the darkest place of all, Clary opens a Portal so Jace can snatch and use Jonathan Shadowhunter’s weapon, the skeptron and destroy all the demons “like an avenging angel” (Heavenly Fire 557). However, Sebastian is hers to conquer. He offers to save her world, breaking the link between realms so he can no longer attack it, if she will rule by his side. “Ever since you discovered the Shadow World, haven’t you secretly wanted to be a hero? To be the most special of a special people? In out own way we each with to be the hero of our kind” (Heavenly Fire 589). He reminds her that this way she can save her own world yet have an excuse to embrace her own darkness. She agrees and when she kisses him to seal their bargain, she stabs him with her blade, containing heaven’s fire.

He dies slowly, purged of the demon’s blood and returning to the man who might have been her brother. He gives them the Infernal Cup and Jace smashes it, destroying the Endarkened. Their world is saved. There are still trials and sacrifices as Clary and her friends make it home, as they discover the Shadowhunters want vengeance more than mercy and set up the conflicts that will follow. Nonetheless, the book ends with Jocelyn and Luke’s wedding at last, as they celebrate a return to life and hope with new chances for alliance and family.

Most of us have seen the Original Trilogy so many times, it’s taken on a life of its own in our memories. Beyond the fact that we can all quote Yoda from memory, there’s also the weird distortion that happens when every single cute moment has become a T-shirt or a meme. You’ve probably attended a Star Wars wedding. The Force Awakens is as much a sequel to our collective memory of those films as it is to the films themselves.

In that context, a lot of The Force Awakens is about revisiting the big ideas of the Original Trilogy through the eyes of a new, younger set of characters, and rediscovering them. There’s no way to strip away the cultural baggage that’s accrued to the first three Star Wars films, and get at the essence of what they actually were—so instead, this film aims to connect to that collective miasma of shared ideas, while making it all new again (Anders)

Fan-service and shout-outs to the original movies are constant. To some extent this is acknowledging this world’s history – legends of Luke and Han, with the Millennium Falcon or Darth Vader’s skull as souvenirs of the earlier adventures. Other callbacks continue the original aesthetic – use of scale to emphasize the vastness of planets and ships beside personal fliers and tiny individuals. The Force Awakens specifically offers the grungy looking “used future” rather than the shiny CGI droids and intricate costumes of the Old Republic. Nonetheless, technology has both aged and advanced, in small, subtle ways that feel believable, such as X-wing upgrades and the mobile BB-8. There’s the feel of Old Star Wars, from the designs to the vanished racist aliens, cloying children, pod races, painful dialogue, and midichlorians of the prequels. Instead, humor and camaraderie are central, to the point of lots of hugging.

“If we got intoxicated by the nostalgia of what we were doing, the movie was gonna suck,” Abrams admitted (“Director J.J. Abrams” 66). It’s a risk the film frequently takes. In particular, he has recycled the entire plot. Plans hidden in a droid, a Death Star equivalent, three young heroes who mirror the original ones out to save the galaxy.

The Force Awakens essentially retells the story of A New Hope, beat for beat. It inverts some things here, gender-flips some things there, and tweaks a few other things. But this is a movie about a child of mysterious parentage who grows up on a desert planet and proves essential to blowing up a massive, planet-destroying space station. Rewriting the Star Wars saga, this is not. Instead, it’s a bit of a remix. (VanDerWerff)

…

The similarities run deeper than that, even. If you lay A New Hope alongside The Force Awakens, Rey meets Han Solo roughly when Luke meets Obi-Wan Kenobi, and her one-woman escape from the clutches of the First Order turns her into the imprisoned Leia and the Luke who rescues the princess all in one character. Rey’s story and Luke’s mirror each other almost exactly. (VanDerWerff)

Abrams has also brought back many of the emotional resonances. The conflict between father and son in this film is different from the one in Empire, yet startlingly similar. Like Luke, Rey seeks the truth of her parenthood and has (possibly) an evil relative in a mask tempting her to the Dark Side.

Abrams notes, “George Lucas told a story about everyman, everywoman characters who were nobodies who had to step up and become somebody. The idea that there would be a new crop of nobodies in the Star Wars universe who didn’t realize yet they would become somebody, that was a very powerful feeling” (“Director J.J. Abrams” 66). Some of the elements and characters are flipped, as Rey definitely doesn’t need a rescue, allowing the audience a moment of fun.

The visual message is clear: Don’t take anything at face value, because you’re never seeing the whole picture. Abrams loves to surprise and startle his audience, but he also goes into this movie with a laundry list of things that we’re expecting to see, because Star Wars. Instead of simply setting up expectations within the narrative and then playing off them, he’s in a position of having to play off our pre-existing expectations—so he gives us what we expect, but still tries to keep us off guard.

But at times, nostalgia definitely overwhelms storytelling, and at times the determination to give us the “greatest hits” of Star Wars is a little too ingratiating. (Anders)

Of course, a valid point is how derivative it all was the first time around. Even without this major commentary on how life works, it was still recycled storytelling. The heroic space melodrama appeared in Flash Gordon, also a story of a young hero mixing space and fantasy while rescuing his heroine from the Dark Lord. There’s a heavy dose of old radio dramas, too, where superheroes flew into space in great genre mash-ups. The plot is pure hero’s journey as everyone has noticed – King Arthur in space. The other stories follow this as well. Critic Chris Taylor notes: “Spoiler alert: Every Star Wars trilogy is going to follow the arc of the hero’s journey. As did every work of fiction from Gilgamesh to The Hunger Games. As will all the spin-off Star Wars movies” (Taylor).

The original trilogy is also derivative within itself as films one and three have Death Stars, and Luke finishes the fight Darth began with Obi-Wan. In Empire, Luke must choose between the bigger picture and saving Leia and his friends, something the Emperor continues taunting him with in the third film. The prequels, too, are obsessed with the bonds of family and friendship while rehashing character appearances and massive nods to the series that will follow. Taylor adds:

The entire Star Wars series is intentionally derivative of itself. This goes back to TheEmpire Strikes Back, which reprised Luke’s Jedi training with Obi-Wan — using a creature who grew out of a version of the “Ben Kenobi” character in the third draft of “The Star Wars,” as it then was. The derivative version ended up being better, and darker, with Luke’s vision of facing Vader springing out of it.

Lucas learned a vital lesson: Keep iterating on the same ideas and you’ll strike gold….Say what you like about J.J. Abrams, but there is no greater imitator of George Lucas than George Lucas. (Taylor)

One could even argue that the repeated plot elements each time are commentary on human nature – each time the world is fixed, someone else must invent a new superweapon or try again with plans from the old one. As Gerry Canavan explains:

…while I can certainly understand the impulse to complain about The Force Awakens as derivative, I really think this is more repetition with a difference than mere or base or stupid repetition. One Death Star is a horror; two Death Stars and one Starkiller Base and whatever horrific murder innovation the First Order will come up with for Episode 9 is something more like the inexorable logic of history, grinding us all to dust. Likewise, it’s true that The Force Awakens hits many of the same story beats as the Original Trilogy, but almost always in ways that are worse: the death of Obi-Wan was sad but mysterious, suggestive of a world beyond death which the Jedi could access, while the death of The Force Awakens’s version of Obi-Wan is not only brutally material but visceral and permanent, as far as we have any reason to believe right now. The loss of Alderaan is sad, but the loss of what appears to be the entire institutional apparatus of the resurgent Republic is unthinkably devastating; aside from the loss of life it would take decades for the Galaxy to recover from such an event, even if they weren’t having to fight off the First Order while doing it. (Canavan)

True, but so far, the new film doesn’t have much identity to set it apart – if its scenes, shots, characters and plots mirror A New Hope so completely, viewers could really use a clue what this new story has to offer that’s different from the old one.

Luke Skywalker has vanished.
In his absence, the sinister
FIRST ORDER has risen
from the ashes of the Empire
and will not rest until Skywalker, the last Jedi,
has been destroyed.

With the support of the REPUBLIC, General Leia Organa leads a brave RESISTANCE.
She is desperate to find her
brother Luke and gain his
help in restoring peace and
justice to the galaxy.

Leia has sent her most daring
pilot on a secret mission
to Jakku, where an old ally
has discovered a clue to
Luke’s whereabouts . . .

In itself this title sequence more than provides the exposition. It sets up a new kind of story with a shift in who gets to be front and center.

Luke is gone. In fact, he won’t be the hero-leader of the story at all. All of the other characters will make a new narrative and show what they have to contribute, front and center. The second paragraph introduces “General Leia Organa” – no longer Princess Leia and not Mrs. Leia Solo either. She is the active one as she organizes the search, while Luke remains passive, waiting to be found. In fact, Luke doesn’t have a single line in the film, only waiting as active Rey sets out to find him, much as Princess Leia waited the first time around. “Leia is in need of finding in A New Hope, so Luke is in need of finding in The Force Awakens” (VanDerWerff). In the book, Rey’s thoughts provide a fun callback to this switchover:

His hair and beard were white, and his countenance was haunted. He did not speak, nor did she.

Remembering, Rey reached into her pack and removed his Lightsaber. Taking several steps forward, she held it out to him. An offer. A plea. The galaxy’s only hope.

All this sets the scene for a far different Star Wars universe, one that’s been changing for a while:

There has been a noticeable increase of prominent women in Star Wars; most notably with Ahsoka and Ventress in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and Hera and Sabine in Star Wars Rebels. But in these cartoons they are still supporting players in Anakin and Ezra’s stories. They are most certainly included, even at times emphasized, and in the case of Ahsoka receive a great amount of development, but they are never the character who’s central to the story. (Moran)

Certainly, there have been strong women in Star Wars (well, two of them) with more in the less-popular television shows and novelizations. However, women’s roles in the franchise have always been sidelined. Certainly, Leia was bold and powerful in her time: When attacked by Stormtroopers in her first scene, the senator in modest white with giant hair buns snatches a blaster. She even shoots first. Unleashing her powerful tongue while imprisoned by the Empire, she mocks them all with “Darth Vader, only you could be so bold,” “Governor Tarkin, I should have expected to find you holding Vader’s leash. I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board,” and the memorable, “Aren’t you a little short for a Stormtrooper?”

Billie Lourd says, “When I noticed the movie for the first time, I noticed my mom was not only as confident and strong as the men, she was one of the most confident characters in the entire film. It made me realize women are just as powerful as men and that we can truly do anything they can (if not more)” (“Billie Lourd,” 52).

While Han Solo shirks responsibility and Luke Skywalker fumbles around with his evolving, boyish perception of the hero, Leia gets things done. When her own rescue goes awry, she grabs the blaster herself and finds a way out. She’s not just a princess but a radical fighting for freedom under a tyrannical empire.

“She had contempt for and worked with men, and I liked that,” Fisher says. “There was something human about her. It showed that she could do whatever she needed to do, and if she could do that, then everybody could do it. People identified with her. She’s like a superhero.” (Woerner, “Women”)

Nonetheless, she’s the goal of the story for Luke – the princess needing rescue, not the hero growing in power. Of course, her most problematic moment is watching her lie there on display in her gold bikini to please Jabba and the male audience. (In Leia’s prequel book to The Force Awakens, she refuses “a two-piece brown swimsuit adorned with gold braid” and insists on dressing more modestly in a joking homage) (Castellucci 132). Her romance is less problematic, conducted between fellow fighters basically equal in power (most of the time she outranks Han but they’re on his ship and neither intimidates the other).

Meanwhile, she values her fighting ability and perception but uses neither to become a Jedi knight. J.J. Abrams notes that he, co-writer Lawrence Kasdan and even George Lucas had discussed this issue together but decided against it:

It was a great question, and one we talked about quite a bit even with Carrie [Fisher]. If there is ‘another’ why not take advantage of this natural Force strength this character had? And one of the answers was that it was simply a choice she made, that her decision to run the rebellion and ultimately this Resistance, and consider herself a General as opposed to a Jedi, it was simply a choice that she took. Not that there isn’t any regret that should could have and didn’t. But clearly we’ve seen and we do again, she is clearly Force strong. (Abrams, “Why Didn’t”)

In the new story, she leads the Resistance, but only behind the scenes.

Like Leia, Padmé starts strong but then fades away, literally. On Tatooine she proves able to explore the desert world and take care of herself, though she only makes feeble protests at Qui-Gon’s high-handedness. Episode two, the queen fights for her life in a gladiator pit, but also has her clothing artistically slashed through the revealing white fabric. A great deal of time is spent lounging in gorgeous, impractical outfits while Anakin protects her from scary killers. The third is the worst:

Amidala gives up everything, including the will to live, when the love of her life (Anakin Skywalker) turns to evil. She physically dies of a broken heart while cry-birthing Luke and Leia Skywalker. Padmé doesn’t even get the glory of living on as a political martyr; her whole story is swept under the rug so Darth Vader can take the stage. (Woerner, “Women”)

All this is why Rey is such a shakeup. Obviously, she’s completely strong and capable in every scene. In fact, Star Wars not only makes big strides at putting a female front and center, but also at not dwelling on it. No one calls her “princess” or implies she’s too sheltered – which she isn’t. In fact, she’s the first female character growing up outside of privilege – scavenger rather than ruler or senator. “She feels very modern,” Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy says of Rey. “I think she will be relevant to audiences today, she embodies that sense of self-reliance and independence. I think that’s who she is” (Woerner, “Women”).

Yet it isn’t until she meets Finn (John Boyega) where we get to relish watching her defy gender stereotypes. Within minutes of screen time, she disarms Finn with her spear, hides them both from stormtroopers, rescues him — no more hand-holding! — and flies the Millennium Falcon. Just like that, Finn is forced to abandon those quaint, traditional gender-role ideas that were programmed into him since birth by the dictatorial First Order. (If only Earth could adapt as quickly.) (Sperling)

On their first meeting, Finn strides in to rescue her, only to see her outfight all the goons attacking her without any help. Working on the Falcon, Finn is helpless with tools and Rey must direct him in another gender-flip. When he infiltrates the Starkiller Base to rescue her, he finds she’s already saved herself. Likewise, when he takes on Ren with a lightsaber, Rey is the one to win the duel, then save Finn after. The only one Finn actually rescues is the male Poe.

“I hope Rey will be something of a girl power figure,” Ridley says proudly. “She will have some impact in a girl power-y way. She’s brave and she’s vulnerable and she’s so nuanced … She doesn’t have to be one thing to embody a woman in a film. It just so happens she’s a woman but she transcends gender. She’s going to speak to men and women.” (Howard)

There are other flips on traditional gender roles. Though it’s kept family friendly, Kylo Ren violates Rey’s mind, and she fights back, violating his in response and reclaiming her power. She reveals him as a scared little boy playing Vader-dress-up rather than a real supervillain.

Rey thus stands out as a shining role model. One critic relates:

Leaving the theater, my girls felt as empowered as their brother usually does after seeing one of the many blockbusters built for him. They never commented on how pretty Rey is. They never had to flinch because Rey was a sexual object to some man in power. They just felt strong. Equal. I can only imagine how the film will feel to girls in parts of the world where women are not allowed control over their own bodies or hearts or minds. Imagine a generation of both sexes, growing up believing that girls are powerful. Imagine the force of a billion girls realizing that, one day, they can rule the galaxy. (Sperling)

Another noticeable change is how the women suddenly appear everywhere. Maz and Leia ensure that Rey isn’t the only woman in the galaxy – a problem Leia always had.

The rest of the women in the Star Wars prequels and originals were sidelined to cantina bar stools or Coruscant hallways, banished as background players or imprisoned dancers, with the occasional exception of a Mon Mothma cameo (“Many Bothans died…”). This list becomes only more frustrating when compiled with deleted scenes from Return of the Jedi that revealed footage of multiple female rebel pilots attacking the Death Star. Sadly, most of the lady rebels wound up on the cutting-room floor, save for one pilot whose small line was dubbed over with the voice of a man in the finished film. (Woerner, “Women”)

This time, “Abrams acknowledges the past while fashioning his own pluralistic future filled with a female hero, female generals, and even Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie), the galaxy’s first female villain,” added Marlow Stern in The Daily Beast. She concludes: “In this Star Wars, the Force that awakens is woman” (Howard). On Jakku, the first villager who pulls out a blaster to defend them all from Stormtroopers is a woman. Female faces casually appear with Jess the fighter pilot, Rebellion Doctor Kalonia, and some of the aliens on Jakku and Maz’s bar. There’s K-T, the pink companion for R2-D2. Even Leia’s biographer droid Peazy has a female voice. Niima Base itself is named for “old Niima the Hutt herself” (Fry, Rey’s Survival Guide). Carrie Fisher jokes, “It’s good to have a little help. I liked being the only one when I was 19…now I need some backup” (Breznican, “The Force Awakens” 84).

The Bechdel test (named for comic strip creator Alison Bechdel) insists that a film or show must meet the following criteria:

It includes at least two women

who have at least one conversation

about something other than a man or men

This is not the only criteria for a feminist film, and it certainly has its flaws as a theory, yet it also emphasizes how many women in films take the role of sidekick or girlfriend whose only purpose is to aid the hero on his quest and worry about his problems. Famously, the first trilogy, with only Leia beside a few shots of Aunt Beru and Mon Mothma, does not pass, despite Leia’s strength.

The prequels, however, do, at least somewhat. Episode I has Padmé and Anakin’s mother, Shmi, discussing politics. Episode II watches Padmé and the queen discuss whether the Naboo people should leave the Republic. Episode III, however, does not pass, thanks to a lack of conversation between female characters.

More problematic is these heroines’ purpose in the stories: Leia is the inspiration for Luke and Han’s heroism as they fight to save the princess. Padmé, likewise, is the great catalyst of Anakin’s life, fueling his descent into evil. The women’s own desires are sublimated under the heroes’ struggles and the become only the Anima, the woman who guides the hero to understand his undeveloped feminine side.

Rey, meanwhile, makes her own choices and drives her own narrative. Han, Chewie, and BB-8 appear more to aid her story than their own. While Rey barely encounters Leia onscreen, Maz fills the role of mentor and aids her through the Bechdel issue.

“Star Wars was always a boy’s thing, and a movie that dads could take their sons to. And although that is still very much the case, I was really hoping this could be a movie that mothers could take their daughters to as well,” Abrams said during a November appearance on “Good Morning America.” (Howard)

Maz and Older Leia’s roles certainly wave to the mothers as well as daughters. While Yoda is a power fighter in Attack of the Clones, Maz’s strength seems to derive from quietly surviving, observing, and advising, seeing much that others do not. She’s a grandmotherly figure in homespun, unusual in the galaxy and certainly unique to action films.

Maz is in many ways the new queen of the franchise: The symbols on the flags outside her castle include Boba Fett’s Mythosaur skull, Ziro the Hutt’s Black Sun tattoo, the Broken Horn from Star Wars: Rebels, pod racer insignia, and Hondo Ohnaka’s pirate symbol. There’s also the 501st Legion, international fan-based organization that builds and cosplays armor from the franchise. This subtly suggests that women, even grandmothers, can be fans too – this isn’t just a world for teen boys.

There’s also the return of Leia, no longer an action girl and young romantic heroine as she used to be, but a loving mother and wife (or at least conflicted ex-wife). Though she’s not a nineteen-year-old action heroine, she still gets moments of romance:

Leia: You know, as much as we fought, I always hated it when you left.

Han Solo: That’s why I did it, so that you’d miss me.

Leia: I do miss you.

In the novelization, she’s shown making more important choices, from sending a representative to plead with the Senate to determining her son’s future:

“[Snoke] knew our child would be strong with the Force. That he was born with equal potential for good or evil.”

“You knew this from the beginning? Why didn’t you tell me?”

She sighed. “Many reasons. I was hoping that I was wrong, that it wasn’t true. I hoped I could sway him, turn him away from the dark side, without having to involve you.” A small smile appeared. “You had— you have— wonderful qualities, Han, but patience and understanding were never among them. I was afraid that your reactions would only drive him farther to the dark side. I thought I could shield him from Snoke’s influence and you from what was happening.”

Her voice dropped. “It’s clear now that I was wrong. Whether your involvement would have made a difference, we’ll never know.”

Along with her relationship with her rebellious son (described but not seen onscreen) she takes a motherly interest in Rey, the new romantic and action heroine. Of course, Rey is likely either her daughter or her niece – many viewers wondered if before Leia’s embrace and farewell, Leia imparted this information. She sends Rey off with “May the Force be with you,” symbolically passing the torch of adventuring to the next generation. As the mature princess and love interest, she’s another character unusual in this sort of film.

Another twist is that Phasma, the “Chrome Trooper” played by Gwendoline Christie, was originally designed as male.

After The Force Awakens unveiled its first cast photo, featuring only one new female character, online media outlets (including io9) criticized the male-dominated cast—and it turns out this was a major factor in their decision.

“Everything was happening simultaneously,” [writer Lawrence] Kasdan told Vulture. “When the idea came up to make Phasma female, it was instantaneous: Everyone just said, ‘Yes. That’s great.” (Lussier, “Gwendoline Christie”)

While this Stormtrooper captain role would generally be taken by a man, the more interesting fact is that she never removes her mask – only her long ponytail and voice identify her as female.

“What feels so modern about Captain Phasma is that we are used to forming our immediate relationships with female characters, conventionally, due to the way they are made flesh,” Christie told io9. “So for us to form our immediately and initial relationship with this character, who happens to be a female character, who happens to be Star Wars’ first female villain on screen, I felt that was really modern. That we respond to her through her character and her actions initially rather than the way she’s made flesh.” (Lussier, “Gwendoline Christie”)

Her appearance emphasizes that the Empire and its splinter groups have women (and perhaps have always had women no one has seen) Likewise, the First Order has seemingly shed the speciesist philosophies of the old Empire, since now their leader Snoke is an alien. In a universe where aliens represent people of color, this is a clear shift in the metaphor. No longer are the Aryan Nazis preying on the Wookies and other marginalized races.

More directly, people of color are now scattered through the universe, along with women. Casually in many scenes, there are more Blacks and Asians among the Resistance or in the gangs that board Han Solo’s ship. Leia’s second-in-command is the Asian Admiral Statura. With Poe (whose actor, Oscar Isaac, is Guatemalan), and Finn (John Boyega) front and center, the universe has a lots more diversity all of a sudden. Finn’s unmasking in fact suggests the Stormtroopers might be any race now, unlike their sameness in Attack of the Clones. Thus the universe is being rewritten in a way that allows fans of all races and genders to join in the fun.

Of course, there are still barriers to fight past onscreen. Helen O’Hara, provocative author of “Star Wars Hero Poe Dameron: Is Disney Brave Enough to Make him Gay?” writes: “The time would seem to be coming where we could and should have a hotshot X-wing pilot who happens to be gay.” She adds:

When reunited after believing one another dead, Poe runs towards Finn and throws himself into an embrace; if Finn were a woman, we’d be in little doubt that that was enough to signal interest. Should we doubt it just because they’re both men? The Force Awakens radically put a woman and a black man front-and-centre; why not add a gay man and complete a trifecta of the underrepresented?

Certainly, Poe and Finn are close, and Poe isn’t seen caring for Rey or any other woman onscreen or in his books. The actors played with the issue in an interview while leaving everything open:

“I think it’s very subtle romance that’s happening; you have to watch it a few times to see the little hints. At least I was playing romance; in the cockpit I was playing romance,” joked Oscar Isaac on Ellen the day before the movie came out.

Boyega agreed, “I was playing romance,” – though it wasn’t clear that he was talking about the same scene, or that he was any more serious.

Isaac finished by saying, “I won’t say with which character. It could be a droid.” (O’Hara)

An awful lot came in the finale after a season of relationships and drama. It ended with a staff walkout, a celebrity self surrender, a possible assassination. Piper establishes that no one should mess with her, the prison’s new godfather, or she will ruin their lives (of course, this means her girlfriend will be around next season for the repercussions, plus emphasizes Piper as the one who will betray her friends to keep them close.) Caputo has tried selling out—possibly to change the system from within. Of course, his experienced staff won’t have it, and the prison is only help by helpless young people and one donut-selling rapist. When the celebrity chef (obviously a Martha Stewart parallel though Martha didn’t actually end up in the real Litchfield) arrives, there’s no guard there to meet her.

All seemed settled with Daya’s baby, but now she’s likely headed for foster care, with neither parent in sight. Pornstache or Bennett certainly might return next season to complicate Daya’s life. No sign of Larry this season — one wonders if we’ll see Piper finally get out and be stuck interacting with him and Polly.

Flashbacks this episode were a momentary glimpse of many backgrounds. They were charming and a nice parallel with the multi-flashbacks of the first episode, though they lacked a strong thematic connection,

There were severs signs of hope from Lorna’s sweet wedding to Healy’s wife bringing him the Olive Garden food he likes. Finally, season ends with Norma leading all the inmates in a mass exodus.. it’s an uplifting moment, a true miracle far beyond a chicken for the hopeless of the prison. Brave heedless Suzanne is the first to leap into the promised land, Freedom Lake as Poussey calls it. The others follow, celebrating with her in a moment of pure abandon and joy. In the water, Soso finds friendship,Cindy finds religion, Suzanne finds a turtle (and a girlfriend). This moment prepares them for the pitfalls of the upcoming season….for it’s certain there will be one.

The season began with a quick visit to everyone, all the characters that have already been long established. New characters included Counselor Berdie Rogers (played by actress Marsha Stephanie Blake), plus the surprise return of Alex when she rolls over in the new inmates’ bunk. It opens on Mother’s Day, reminding viewers of the misery of prison as they try to make a cheerful carnival, but all must hit the ground before it’s over. Flashbacks spend moments with several characters, offering wonderful insights.

All the repercussions from season two come flooding in by the next couple episodes: Suzanne’s emotional damage from Vee, Maria’s kid, Sophia’s kid. Gloria’s kid is introduced with a similar set of problems – there’s little the prison mothers can do from behind bars. Red closes off her tunnel, though Nicky’s heroin becomes a bigger problem than ever as she can’t manage to say goodbye. There’s also Piper’s lie to Red that her business was thriving and Piper’s betrayal of Alex. This last nicely parallels season one, as Alex shepherded the emotional Piper through prison, then finally revealed she had turned in the other woman. This time, Alex is the wreck and Piper stable and a prison veteran…before Alex finds out she’s back because of her girlfriend. Certainly, this all seems contrived to build up tension, but it’s effective nonetheless. Healey may be trying to seem mature, but with Red and his wife, he’s back to the same hang ups (though now we’ve seen his literally crazy mother…whether this was before or after electroshock isn’t clear). With Red’s announcement to his bride that Healy is a good man, Healy is quite struck – perhaps with his only positive female relationship ever.

Bennett and Daya hit a snag, as in his own flashback he’s revealed as weak – he’s not the guy to jump on the grenade but cower in his bunk (remember his battle wound was really an infection from a hot tub). He proposes to Daya and plans to raise her baby on his own, but when he sees the squalor and violence of her childhood, he panics (as her mother’s cheating boyfriend threatens her brother with a gun and reveals that Daya’s best story involves her drunken mother smashing her Quinceanera cake). Instead of doing as Daya’s mother advises and giving the baby to “Lady Pornstache” for a stable life, he runs from the entire situation. As the only sweet genuine love story shatters, the theme of prison crushing lives and families becomes clearer. Daya in turn appears to give up on life and hands over her baby, no longer wanting the burden with no Bennett.

Flashbacks are always a big draw, and I know many people were waiting for Chang’s (though I found the lack of subtitles oppressive. Yes I got the jist, but only that). Boo’s was fun, though there weren’t major surprises, or a revelation of her crime. Nicky’s was rather predictable, but Flaca’s was unexpected and insightful. By the time we’re halfway through, we’re gotten new inmates, kosher meals, and sweatshops, with many ethical debates as well, Litchfield is under new corrupt management (slightly different from the old corrupt management) and Piper appears to be flirting with a newcomer. Watch out, Alex!

Seeking a few more essays on Gender, Race, Orientation, and the Other in the Time of Outlander — just email valerie at calithwain.com with your idea!

The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon has sold 25 million copies worldwide. More interestingly, it’s said that mentioning Outlander in a group of women, no matter the age, will reveal that a quarter have read it. Now the television show, often called “Game of Thrones for Women” is transforming the popular cable shows, brimming with nudity and violence, as it brings in a specifically women’s fandom…or is it?

This collection welcomes discussion of the television show, novels, John Grey books, short stories, and associated works such as cast interviews, Gabaldon’s blog, or Outlander fan culture.

McFarland has expressed interest in an academic collection of essays on this pop culture phenomenon, which will likely come out alongside season two. Of course, this collection will only go forward if it gets sufficient submissions.

UPDATE: I’m considering splitting the book into two, one on genre and fandom, the other on race/gender/disability/homosexuality/otherness. Topics fitting into these categories are especially welcome.

Subtopics
There are many areas to explore:
Gender Studies: Male courtliness as performance; feminine charm or seduction as performance; Geillis the femme fatale; Claire the WWII nurse; sexism; female gaze, homosexuality in Black Jack, the Duke of Sandringham, and Lord John. Characters such as prostitutes, housekeepers, clan chiefs, and warriors have many interesting gender nuances.
Genre: romance, time travel story, war story, military history, or cross-genre
Adaptation: comparison to other cable shows like Game of Thrones, The White Queen, Camelot, True Blood, etc. Differences between book and show and the motivations behind these. Costumes or music (the blogs by the ones in charge of these are useful resources)
Myth and Folklore: standing stones, circle dancers, gemstone magic, prayers from the Carmina Gadelica, Loch Ness, parallels between Claire’s journey and selkie or fairy kidnapping tales. There’s also the Caribbean stories of book three or Lord John and the Plague of Zombies, Native American myth in the later books, and so on.
History: World War II, the sixties, the Eighteenth Century, witchcraft, the Revolutionary War, Bonnie Prince Charlie, Louis XV, the Count de Saint-Germain
Symbolism: psychology such as Jung or Joseph Campbell, significant objects such as the blue vase, pearl necklace, or wedding rings.
Literature: analyzing the stories as literature or comparison with other important works
Fandom studies
Television studies
Other

Ultron first appeared in Avengers #57 (as did the Vision). He wasn’t created by Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, but by Hank “Ant-Man” Pym, whose film is coming next, though not in time for him to play inventor here.

The storyline Ultron Unlimited has the villain invading a fictional East European country with an army of robot drone. The title Age of Ultron has no connection with the comic book event of the same name, but was chosen because it sounded cool.

In the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode “The Dirty Half Dozen”, it is Agent Coulson who breaks in to a Hydra base and locates Loki’s scepter. He then contacts Maria Hill so she can let the Avengers know to go to Sokovia and retrieve it, as they do in the beginning of the film. Dr. List, Strucker’s flunkie, appears on Agents of SHIELD, then joins his boss on the film.

During the opening assault on Baron Strucker’s fortress, Captain America uses a wrist-mounted device to make his shield return. This is designed by Tony in the early Avengers comics.

Baron Strucker has collected Chitauri tech from the Battle of New York.

Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch first appeared in X-Men #4 in 1964 as members of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (and children of Magneto!), then switched sides and joined the Avengers in 1965’s Avengers #16. The MCU is giving “Gifted” characters several origin stories, from artificial to Inhuman to genuine inexplicable gifts….they don’t say mutant or use Magneto as these rights are tied up with X-Men. Baron Strucker substitutes as evil father though the side-switching remains. The clip of their origin story includes a red burst of apparent Terrigen Mist (now appearing with the Inhumans on Agents of SHIELD).

Pietro and Wanda Maximoff dress like in X-Men: Evolution (2000), where Pietro had on blue jeans and sports shirts, and Wanda had on a black dress and red coat.

Strucker, created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, was a returning nemesis in Fury and His Howling Commandos, beginning with #5 in 1964.

Tony’s bumper sticker “Jarvis is my co-pilot” likely nods to the popular sticker “Wash is my co-pilot” from Firefly.

Ultron starts out as as a peacekeeping force. This is a homage to The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes (2010), where he had a similar origin.

During Ultron’s birth, movie clips from the MCU and comic book scenes appear.

Ultron’s odd get-up during his first meeting with the twins nods to his first comic-book appearance, as The Crimson Cowl.

War Machine has ditched his Iron Patriot paint after hassling in Iron Man 3.

Pepper Potts & Jane Foster don’t appear, but are mentioned during the party at Avengers tower.

Erik Selvig from the Thor films cameos from England. Maria Hill reappears, but Loki’s scenes were cut in editing.

Not even Captain America can afford a place in Brooklyn these days, though he lives there in the ’70s comics.

All of Steve Rogers’ friends are senior citizen war vets, also seen in Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch’s The Ultimates.

Stan Lee in his cameo insists he can drink anything, as he’s a World War II veteran who stormed the beaches. Drunk, he shouts “Excelsior!” This last is a famous Stan Lee slogan, the same phrase with which he ended his weekly “Stan’s Soapbox” with, which appeared in every Marvel comic book.
The World War II mention nods to Cap. Like most men of his generation, Mr. Lee did serve in the military. However, he never saw combat. Jack Kirby did storm the beaches though.

The “whosoever holds this hammer” line is from the inscription on Mjolnir in the comics.

Steve Rogers almost lifts Thor’s hammer – he swings it a few times in the comics, showing off his inner nobility. Odd that Natasha doesn’t try the hammer — in the comic “What If?” Age of Ultron #3, she succeeds.

The Avengers visit the city that produces all the world’s Vibranium to stop Ultron. Wakanda of course is home to the Black Panther.

Andy Serkis’ character, Ulysses Klaw, is the Wakandan arms dealer who loses his hand. This prepares him to become Klaw, the nemesis of Black Panther with a vibranium-powered soundwave cannon arm. Apparently all the Phase 2 movies have someone lose a hand in a Star Wars reference, though this is a bit faint.

Klaw is seen wearing a necklace with a claw. The comics state he got that from murdering T’Chaka, the king of Wakanda and the current Black Panther (2018) T’Challa’s father.

In the comics, Ulysses Klaw was manipulated into battling the Avengers by the Crimson Cowl, actually Ultron operating under an alias.

Tony refers to his Hulkbuster armor as “Veronica,” likely nodding to the character of Archie Comics. Her counterpart is named like Hulk’s girl, Betty.

The Hulkbuster armor is from the comics and it punches Hulk offscreen as movie one Hulk punched Thor.

Lou Ferrigno, almost every onscreen Hulk voice, contributed to the voice of the Hulk in this film.

The truck marked Crawford in this scene nods to Hulk’s comic book mentor, Dr. Gregory Crawford.

Tony calls Hulk Banner, then admonishes himself over the whole “puny Banner” comment. The Hulk shows hatred for his “puny Banner” side in the comics sometimes.

The Scarlet Witch blasts all the Avengers with visions, like Uatu the Watcher does to them in “Original Sin”.

Tony’s Scarlet Witch dream has him in space with Chitauri Leviathans flying overhead, surrounded by dead Avengers. In the comics, Tony often flies into space, and this moment may certainly foretell his future in Infinity War. Stark finds the Avengers killed by Thanos in the Infinty Gauntlet comic series.

Scarlet Witch helps Captain America have a vision of Peggy Carter, from her own show, possibly preparing for a second season. As she tries to convince him his fight is done, this moment echoes her talking down Howard Stark’s plane on her own show. Plus, they finally have their dance date from their first film.

The Roy Thomas Players, the band in Cap’s dream, are named for the comic book writer who created the Vision and Ultron.

Thor’s Scarlet Witch dream sequence takes him to Asgard, where Heimdall, the keeper of Bifrost, tries to choke him. This may foreshadow events of Thor: Ragnarok.

Black Widow’s vision is of her Red Room training, seen (with another Widow) on Agent Carter. She and Dottie from that show cannot have children, emphasized by Dottie’s playacting with a baby carriage. They both have ballet training, something Natasha does in her comics origin story, and a possible nod to River from Firefly as well.

When Scarlet Witch tries to mind control Hawkeye, he neutralizes her. He then quips: “I tried the mind control thing. Not a fan!” This is a reference to being mind controlled by Loki during most of “The Avengers”.

Banner plays with a cradle in movie one, noting he doesn’t always get what he wants. This time, he also talks about having a child.

“Marvel Ultimates” has a controversial incestuous storyline between Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. According to Elizabeth Olsen, she and Aaron Taylor-Johnson touched each other a lot in a subtle homage.

Vision saves Scarlet Witch and flies off with her in his arms nodding to their future romance.

Black Widow’s outfit is from Fear Itself. Hawkeye’s is more like his classic comics look, with elements of his original Marvel Comic outfit, his Ultimate Marvel outfit, and his Ronin identity.

Actor Aaron Himelstein played the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who wouldn’t launch the ships in Captain America: Winter Soldier and returns as one of the new agents on Fury’s helicarrier.

Grand Central Station, blown up in Avengers, has been rebuilt with an Avengers statue.

Sam Wilson, the Falcon, from Captain America: The Winter Soldier. His “working missing person’s cases” quip is a reference to Bucky. Presumably both characters will star in Captain America: Civil War.

Friday is one of Tony’s AIs in the comics. The other two AI chips were named Jocasta (Ultron’s bride in the comics) and Tadashi (Big Hero 6)

Someone chokes Tony in every movie he’s in, including this one. Some people are just that irritating…

Cap’s line “This is what SHIELD is supposed to be…” feels like a wave to the Agents of SHIELD TV series, which hasn’t gotten the hype of the films.

Ultron proclaims that everyone creates the thing they dread, including “invaders” creating “avengers.” The Invaders were a comic precursor to the Avengers.

“There are no strings on me” is Disney of course. Also, Ultron’s line “People have looked to the sky and seen hope. I’ll take that from them first” may nod to Joss Whedon’s Firefly credits song: “Burn the land, and boil the sea – you can’t take the sky from me…”

In the comics, Dr. Helen Cho is the mother of Amadeus Cho, a superhero who may appear in later stories.

Clint Barton’s wife Laura is from the Ultimate comics. She names their child Nathaniel Pietro for Quicksilver and Black Widow., though in the comics it’s Nicole for Nick Fury.

When Black Widow snatches Captain America’s shield and puts it on the front of her motorcycle., this mimics the motorcycle round windshield of the Reb Brown Captain America films.

Loki’s staff contains the “mind stone,” one of the Infinity Gems being collected for Avengers: Infinity War. Stones available in the MacGuffin hunt include the aethyr from Dark World, Orb from Guardians of the Galaxy, the Tesseract, and now (unfortunately for him) the one in the Vision’s head. These are the Tesseract/Space Gem (Captain America: The First Avenger, The Avengers), The Aether/Reality Gem (Thor: The Dark World), Loki’s Scepter/Mind Gem (The Avengers) and The Orb/Power Gem (Guardians of the Galaxy).

At film’s end, Thor goes off to deal with the impending Ragnarok, and Tony Stark drafts legislation to help governments better regulate superhuman activity, kicking off Captain America: Civil War. Hulk heads off alone, as with several Avengers comics.

Tony says he’s ready to tag out — after this film and Avengers 3, Robert Downey Jr. was going to retire from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, he later signed on for Captain America: Civil War (2016).

Cap ends by almost saying “Avengers Assemble.”

At last, Captain America enters the “New Avengers Facility.” Black Widow, Scarlet Witch, the Falcon, War Machine and the Vision, located within, might indeed be called the “New Avengers,” a comic spinoff series.

The end credits scene features Thanos claiming the Infinity Gauntlet (seen in the Asgard treasure room) and adding, “Fine, I’ll do it myself” – likely collect the last gems.

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There is also a list of the Agents of SHIELD tie in episode’s easter eggs. https://valeriefrankel.wordpress.com/2015/04/28/so-many-goodies-seen-on-agents-of-shield-the-dirty-half-dozen/

In the episode before Agents of SHIELD, there are many foreshadowings, nods, and tie-ins:

Baron Von Strucker and his flunky List are experimenting on Gifted people –the SHIELD agents go into one of his secret bases and rescue Deathlok and the Inhuman Lincoln, but “the twins” are still in custody. List finally escapes to meet up with Baron Strucker in Sokovia,

Coulson tells Jemma to “suit up” — everyone said this in the Avengers film.

Skye’s mother fears their base will be discovered. With Skye’s return to her friends and Lincoln in their custody, this seems likely. Raina meanwhile, seems to want to lead the Inhumans. Cal returns to the base, still unstable, still wanting his daughter returned.

Coulson vows to make up his secret-keeping to May but doesn’t actually do it. She doesn’t completely trust him at this point.

Skye uses her powers, no controlled, in a firefight. She wears her superhero gloves.

Jemma tries to kill Ward, revealing how far she’s gone over to the dark side. Ward meanwhile seems to belive you don’t betray your team and relishes being with them –he seems, like Spike or Angel (or Wesley, Jayne, Willow, and countless others) to want a role among them after betraying them.

Coulson exerts his power — he gives Gonzales the Toolbox but warns him he won’t have it long. He also finds the Staff of Loki for Agent Hill (who cameos), he mentions Fury’s alive (and thus Gonzales wasn’t in the know) and prepares Theta Protocol … and the Avengers.

Bobbi has misgivings about locking up Skye. Mac and Hunter reconcile. The two SHIELD teams are now all stuck in one base, ostensibly working together. Coulson thinks Fury will come soon and settle the chain of command. He also thinks the council is silly.

Raina ends the episode foreseeing men of metal destroying cities and the Staff of Loki playing a part.

All the show plots are condensed — trim down minor characters and foolish subplots to have more major characters running into each other. THis seems smart…even bringing Lancel back after a few years needs major reminders for some fans. THe tightened plots are facinating and fun as they heighten tension, and also identify which annoying minor characters really AREN’T needed.

In book four, Cersei sends Ser Aerys Oakheart of the Kingsguard to watch over Myrcella, then a troop to bring her home. This time, rather than introduce new characters, Jamie and Bronn are going themselves. We lose the plot of Jamie traipsing uselessly through the Riverlands meeting minor characters and tidying up Cateyln’s brother and uncle who are still holding onto their castle. But admittedly, without the Starks, they’re not that significant to us. Jamie is certainly riding into a climate where everyone hates the Lannisters, and the plot against Myrcella in book four will likely swallow him up — Sand Snakes hate all Lannisters. Seeing him actually interact with his daughter would be interesting as that moment really hasn’t appeared yet.

Cersei appoints a new High Septon herself, clearly to go after Margaery (though Margaery hasn’t left ny evidence of infidelity). Obviously, the drunk and paranoid queen will fabricate the evidence and get caught in her own trap. Nice touch foreshadowing the Walk of Shame with the previous High Septon, though he really could have had more time in other episodes establishing his existence. Also, Cersei’s childhood flashback shows her panic at a younger more beautiful queen (does she REALLY need more motive to hate Margaery?) but NOT death at the hands of her brother. Is that not guaranteed on the show? That was the most significant moment of the prophecy for me.

As early as episode three, Qyburn is building Frankenstein. He seems a wholly vile creature, despite his kindness to Jamie.

As with the books, Daenerys isn’t doing much. Though episode two did an excellent job of establishing the difficulty of imperialism.

Arya’s training with her old season two friend, which makes more sense than with strangers. Of course, in both stories, all the face-switching ensures that she can’t really be sure who’s training her. It’s a nice return though.

All of Varys puppet princes have been skipped in favor of Varys himself. This is a nice streamline which also gives Varys more to do (in the books, he’s vanished by now). There’s also no sign of Penny (whom some of us thought was sappy) or Tyrion’s obsession with his childhood wife. His meeting with Ser Jorah emphasizes that more characters are coming together.

Some of us really want to see Yara, her father, and all their mess start up.

Brienne in the books hopelessly trails after Arya and Sansa and finds neither. She teams up with lame minor characters and ends at a stalemate with Lady Stoneheart. In a more fulfilling moment on the show, she finds both girls, long enough for them to send her off. While anything with Jamie/Lady Stoneheart might wait, or be skipped, Brienne may actually accomplish something this time. If Sansa gets Lady Jeyne’s plot, she’ll need a rescue.

In the books, Sansa and Littlefinger stay with little hapless Robin. Littlefinger intends Sansa to marry Robin’s heir, thus uniting Vale and North. He’s technically lord of the screwed-up Riverlands by this point, giving him enormous amounts of territory if he pulls this off. He’s complicit in dressing Sansa’s childhood friend Jeyne as Lady Arya and sending her to marry Bolton Jr, so he knows that he can finally prove that his Lady Stark is the real one.

The question is, who will win in a fight, Sansa or the Bastard of Bolton? Anyone reading the books would say Bolton, no question. But Lady Macbeth, brought north to be an assassin by Littlefinger, is by this point believable as a savage killer in the night, with poison at least. Why does Littlefinger want this? Is he trying to mold a perfect lady of cruelty to match him – a mate as viciously elegant as he is? Or is this one more attempt to innocently keep his hands clean? We’ll certainly believe he’s ditching the Lannisters — without Tywin, everyone seems to be abandoning ship.

Now, Brienne hates Stannis (as episode 3 reminds us). She and Podrick (almost the only character with no agenda) are heading to Winterfell, as are Stannis and Co. Sansa, Littlefinger Theon and the Boltons are already there. Currently, Sansa believes Lord Bolton killed Robb and her mother (true) and Theon killed her brothers (technically untrue). Theon of course could take the opportunity to be a hero. Jon is being goaded to attack the Boltons as well. Will he try to stop Sansa’s wedding? THe Karstark girl hasn’t been seen, though all her family were established on the show. No wildling princess Val. And Melissande is kicking around and keeping little Shireen for some special destiny. No sign of Mance Raider’s baby and wife from the books (ah, streamlining), but Gilly and Sam have more plot to come.

While episodes one and two were quite slow, three had a LOT of foreshadowing. Did anyone catch that Aemon is ill? And a cameo by Cersei’s boy toy Lancel? And that the Lannisters look weak? Quick cameo by Lady Frey-Bolton. And that the Volantine slaves plus a red priestess want Daenerys to save them next? We know what’s coming…

By the way, has anyone noticed that it normally takes weeks to make all these instantaneous journeys? Well, they only have 30 episodes to cover the big books and epic war. How quickly will Tyrion make it across the sea?

I’m the author of five different books on Game of Thrones and many on pop culture if people would like more insights. amazon.com/Valerie-Estelle-Frankel/e/B004KMCLQK/